Omega's Samaritan
by Wanderer3000
Summary: An alternate Ben 10 becomes lost in the Mass Effect Universe after a run-in with one of his foes. After creating a name for himself on Omega, he draws the attention of a newly revived Shepard who seeks his help in her fight against the Reapers. How will the Omnitrix wielder's presence effect the fate everyone within the Mass Effect universe? Will it be all good? Some bad?
1. Chapter 1

Author: I'll take whatever criticism you guys have, but go easy on me in the comments please, I am new to this!

I do not anything related to **Mass Effect** or **Ben 10**. This is just for fun!

**Updated 5/7/2019**

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Chapter 1

Narrator

A red star illuminates a dark room, the entire back wall is glass window that shows the red sun and the other countless stars illuminating space. A man is sitting in a chair with a terminal facing away from the red star. The shadows cover most of his face. The only visible trait is his eyes…his blue glowing eyes. Upon further examination its apparent that they are cybernetic in nature. The man pulls out a lighter and ignites it for the cigarette in his mouth. The small flame shows a middle-aged man in his late forties to early fifties with dark hair, and wearing a tieless suite. He pressed a button on his chair and a holographic terminal appeared before him. This man's real name is unknown, and only known by the name given to him by his enemies…

The Illusive Man (One week before Shepard's awakening)

TIM pulled up the terminal screen on his chair to look over the dossiers again, and he was currently checking the dossiers of individuals on the OMEGA station. One of these dossiers was listed as priority, this was the dozier of a Doctor Mordin Solus. Ex-Special Tasks Group scientist turned medical doctor. He would be vital to solving the mystery of how the Collectors capture their victims and how we can counteract against their capture methods. The next two were efficient killers and would make excellent addition to the arsenal. Zaeed Massani, a human bounty hunter and ex-Blue Suns, who also happened to be one of the founders of the mercenary group. TIM contacted him and set up the contract, he was in and just needed to be picked up. The next dossier had little information other than his work on Omega. Archangel, Omega's local vigilante who decided to wage a one-man war against all the major mercenary groups on Omega. All anyone knows about him is that he is turian. It seems that Aria doesn't mind his little war if it doesn't interfere with her operations, and it also ensures that her enemies within the mercenary groups are taken care for her. TIM was impressed, but knew that Archangel would eventually slip up, so he decided to add him to the priority list, a man of his skills cannot go to waste. With those three checked out, TIM went to the other dossiers, seven to be exact.

These seven men appeared 10 months ago, and they were the biggest enigma TIM has ever heard of, and this goes with discovering there are genocidal machines called Reapers. Their real names are unknown, and are only known by their aliases. None of them are the same species. The only link they have to each other was a strange green and black hourglass symbol located on different areas of their bodies. The locals gave their group a name like how they gave Archangel his name. Together these men were called the Samaritans. Fitting considering what they do for people. And what makes them more unique, other than their appearance, is their abilities. Kids would describe them as superpowers, and based on what TIM as seen, he could agree with that.

TIM decided to pick out the videos he would show Commander Shepard. He pulled up the very first recording of the first Samaritan spotted and watched it again.

First Video (First sighting)

The first shows and elderly human couple (a/n: man looks like Danny Glover (Lethal Weapons), and woman looks like Kate Mulgrew (Star Trek Voyager)) being attacked by a group of Batarian thugs. There were six thugs total. They had already punched the elderly men in the face, which left him kneeling on the ground with his nose bleeding. The wife is kneeling beside him and tending to his injuries, while one of the thugs laugh and pulls out a knife, and starts demanding for all their valuables. Before anyone else could talk or make a move, a humanoid figure was shown leaping out of the shadows of a nearby ally, and landing between the elderly couple and the thug with the knife. The other thugs backed away in surprise while the leader with the knife just stared with his four's eyes widened. The humanoid kicked the knife out of the thug's hand with a talon foot, sucker punched the thug in the face, and sent the thug flying into a pile of trash.

The rest surrounded the creature in front of the couple and all are shocked at what they see. The humanoid is revealed to be what resembles a combination of a rooster and a hawk. He has three sharp black claws on his toes and talons on his hands, as well as two larger talons protruding from his arms. He has a short yellow beak. He is covered in brown feathers and has a white-brown mohawk and belly. He wears a green mask, a green belt with a white stripe, and black garments. The humanoid also wears a strap vest with the hourglass symbol on the vest hooker.

"Don't you creeps have anything better do than hassling old people." The Hawk spoke

One of the thugs broke out of his shock and asked "W…What the fuck are you?" while the hawk looked at them with a threatening glare.

"Right now, I'm the guy who is going to whoop your butts if you don't turn around and leave these nice people alone. So, leave NOW." The Hawk warned as he got into a fighting stance.

The thugs didn't take the threat seriously and instead pulled out their own knifes and surrounded the hawk while the elderly couple managed to hide behind a trash container during the commotion. One of the thugs shouted: "Kill this motherfucker!"

The Hawk jumped into the air as soon as the thugs charged with their knives. The hawk backflipped in the air and landed was right behind the group. The Hawk was pouncing on the ground when he extends his right leg and kicked two thugs in front out from under their feet and knocked them to ground, dazing the two. He jumped and let out a hawk screech as the other three turned around and performed a spinning roundhouse kick while in the air and kicked the middle thug in the face and sent him spinning onto the ground 20 feet away. The other two turned their attention to the hawk in the middle of them and both thrusted their knives at him, but the Hawk grabbed both their hands and pulled them until the thugs were on the opposite sides of where they were and were facing away from the hawk. The Hawk than grabbed the dazed thugs by their heads and slammed them together, knocking them out cold.

He turned to find the two from earlier getting back up, and saw one of them pull out a gun. The Hawk ducks under the gunfire and rolls out of the way and into the shadows of an alleyway. The Thug fires off into the shadows until his gun is empty. They both came closer to the alleyway to see if they killed the hawk. The elderly couple looked from behind the bin to see the men looking into the shadows. The thug with the gun starts to reload his gun and just as he loads the gun a talon hand grabs his head and he screams as he is pulled into the darkness. The remaining thug attempts to turn and run, but a talon foot knocks his feet out from under him and he falls on his stomach. The talon hand grabs his left foot and drags the screaming thug who claws at the ground into the darkness.

The couple flinch as they hear the cracking off bones from within the shadows. Footsteps were heard from the shadows and the hawk reemerged, looking at the couple. The Illusive man could tell that the elderly man was still concerned about harm coming to his wife as he attempted to shied her, but TIM could see that the elderly woman was not at all threatened by the Hawk alien, she gave it a look that showed she was grateful for it stepping in to help. One thing both man and woman shared, was a look of aw and disbelief as they have never seen an alien like the hawk.

The Hawk approached them and noticed the husband's defensive posture as he was in front of his wife. The Hawk raised his hands to show he was not a threat. The wife grabbed her husband's shoulder and convinced him to relax, eventually he complied and let his guard down. The Hawk lowered his arms.

"Are you two alright?" The Hawk asked concerned. The wife was the first to respond

"Yes, but those brutes hurt my husband." the wife said in a worried tone

Husband (pained but gruff tone): "I'm fine Rita, I've had worse in the war." came the pained, gruff toned reply of the husband.

"Jake your head is bleeding and you might have a concussion…" Rita continued to worry

"I promise I'm fine." Jake assured his wife

The Hawk kneeled in front of the old and activated his omni-tool. TIM was surprised at first when he saw that the Alien already had an omni-tool and was efficient in using, it despite not being a species generally seen in the milky way.

"Here this should help with that." The Hawk said

The Hawk used the omni-tool's medi-gel dispenser to treat the old man's wounds which helped restore him to a better condition where the couple can get home safely.

"This should help with the pain at least until you can get actual medical attention." The Hawk assured.

Rita helped Jake to his feet and looked up to the hawk that towered over them.

"Thank you so much…" Riat said "...but who are?""

"What are you?" Jake asked.

TIM could see the hawk contemplating what he was going to tell the couple and finally came up with an answer that was half what they asked.

"The name is Kickin Hawk and I'm just your friendly neighborhood alien hero."

He then did a dramatic jump into the air and grabbed on to pipes on sides of the walls as he parkour away from the scene. The old couple looked at him leave and were left confused and astounded, but were also grateful for his help. They then made their way home to get help for Jake's injuries. TIM could see that this Kickin Hawk was still following them from a distance to ensure they got home safe. Once they made it home, Kickin Hawk ducked into an alleyway and out of sight of the cameras.

What caught TIM's eye was a green flash within the alleyway and a barely visible shimmer pass by the cameras. Closer examination was impossible due to the failing quality the omega cameras still active throughout the station. All TIM could make out was a black and blue blur speeding away.

Second Video:

Blue Sun mercenaries are seen outside a medical center and demanding that the head doctor comes out and pay for protection fees. There were ten blue suns five human, two turians and three batarians. Ask they continued to shout for people in the medical center to come out.

"Hey! What's with all this noise your making!?" Shouted a nasally voice.

The mercenaries turn around to find a humanoid standing 10 feet humanoid behind them with his hands on his hips. A humanoid, plant-like alien that has an overall green and black colored body, a black covered in a flame-pattern of petals (red on the side and one big yellow petal on the top of his head), and root-like feet, seemingly holding rocks. His green eyes are oval shaped with points at each end with pupils copying the shape but are smaller, and his shoulders have red petals. His elbows and legs have green frills sticking out. Closer examination shows holes in the palm of his five-fingered hands. The hourglass symbol was located on his chest. The human mercenaries who are not wearing helmets cringe their nose and cover them in disgust and the other merchandisers simply back away. According to witnesses this alien gives off a rotten stench that some would describe as a methane stench. This alien called himself Swampfire. By this time the unusual aliens have been dubbed the Samaritans.

"Back off Samaritan" Said the turian Sun Leader "This is blue sun territory and what goes on here is our business, not some shit smelling freakshow."

The mercenaries start to inch closer to the Samaritan with their guns pointing at him in a threatening manner.

"Wow, you kiss your mother with that mouth?" Swampfire asked jokingly, but then his tone and face became serious again "Now this place doesn't belong to you, and Doctor Solus has made it clear that he doesn't have to pay you shit. So, do yourself a favor and walk away while you still can." Swampfire threatened

Once again, the mercenaries refuse to listen and the leader shouts, "Light him up" and the mercenaries unload their guns into the plant humanoid. Patients and staff inside the medical center look and in fear and shock as they see the Samaritan being gunned down…or at least that's what it looked like at first.

The mercenaries look back and see that the Samaritan is still standing with holes in all over his body, even holes in his head, The Samaritan just smirks, which unnerves the mercenaries. What shocks them further is that the holes in the Samaritans body quickly heals and leaving no trace of ever being there. Swampfire responds the humans opened jaw reactions.

"Better close those or flies will buzz in." Swampfire jokes

The Samaritan raised his arm and from the holes in his hands he shoots out a purple/pink gas that engulfs the mercenaries, who desperately tried to reload their guns and back out at the same time. Unfortunate for the mercenaries who had no helmets at that moment because they immediate collapsed into unconsciousness as a result from the sleep gas. Leaving five helmeted mercenaries standing, who quickly turned on their air filters. They all backed away from the gas and fired at the gas cloud, hoping they shot at the Samaritan.

Swampfire rushed out of the cloud and through the barrage of bullets and punched the batarian in the middle so hard his helmet was dented, and he fell unconscious. He turned to his right and attacked the other two batarians. The second batarian, he hit hard enough that it knocked his helmet off but only dazed him. The third tried to hit him with the butt of his gun but Swampfire grabbed it out of his and broke it in two his bare hands. As the second batarian got back up, the two turians decided to join the fight and switched to shotguns. One managed to shoot off his right arm and it fell to the ground.

"Hey that was just rude!" Swampfire shouted.

The other turian shot his left leg off, leaving Swampfire kneeling done and grunting on his right leg and the mercenaries attack again. Swampfire smiles and swings his left arm around all of them.

"Here's mud in your eye!" Swampfire yells

Swampfire releases a mud like substance that covers the visor of the three helmeted mercenaries and blinds the non- helmeted batarian, who shouts in pain as all four of his eyes take the brunt of the mud attack.

Th helmeted blue Suns try to smear off the mud, the leader takes his off and looks at the Samaritan with the turian equivalent of a death glare. What catches him off guard is when vines protrude from Swampfire stumps and grab on to the severed limbs near him and begin to reattach themselves.

TIM was always amazed when he witnessed this Samaritan's regeneration capabilities. Miranda once proposed that acquiring a sample would yield results for future genetic engineering projects. TIM still considered the idea even now.

Swampfire than extended both hands while kneeling on one leg and flamethrowers ignited from his palms. The leader dodged but his two blind associates were not so lucky as they could feel the temperature in their armor rising as they were engulfed in the flames and screamed as they realized it was fire. Swampfire ran up to both and sucker punched the batarian in the stomach so hard he passed out from the pain. Then he shot his elbow into the back of the turian, knocking him out as well.

Swampfire turned his attention to the leader who was grabbing a pistol and held it at Swampfire who was not at all threatened by the weapon. TIM saw the un-helmeted batarian get the mud out of his two right eyes and was aiming his pistol at the Samaritan as well…until a bullet from the medical center went through the batarian's temple and dropped dead. Swampfire turned for a second but then heard a second gun shot and turned back to find the leader dead as well from a head shot. Swampfire turned and saw Doctor Mordin Solus with his Specials Task Group pistol. He greeted the Samaritan in his fast-talking manner.

"Ah Swampfire. Glad to see you" The Doctor quickly greeted "Thought I had to come out and deal with all the mercenaries. Bothersome groups. Should start displaying bodies outside as warning. Should get the message…eventually."

"Hey doc, nice to see you to" Swampfire greeted him with a smile, "I was just in the neighborhood and thought I stop by to see if everything is okay, considering what happened last time."

The Samaritan avoided looking at the dead bodies before him. TIM noticed that the Samaritans tend to avoid killing at all costs when they first arrived.

"Yes, dangerous times these are. Especially when opening a new practice. People see chance to extort money and drugs from practice." Solus said quickly, but than spoke slow and serious "Last mistake they make." (than he went back to fast) "Appreciate your arrival. Always fascinated by your fights. (Solus eyes brightened with anticipation and child-like joy) Oh, speaking of supply. Could I acquire another sample? Regeneration experiments have been making progress, (sheepishly) however I used up last samples you given, (faced paced) don't wish to take advantage but samples are proving promising for potential new medical practices. "

Ever since the Samaritans appeared on Omega, the doctor has been asking them for DNA samples every time he encounters one of them. He shows a specific fascination with Swampfire's regeneration capabilities and has talked about using the samples for research in regeneration of lost and damaged tissue.

Swampfire smirks. TIM could tell he was amused by the doctors fast talking.

"Sure doc, no problem." Swampfire said.

TIM watches him tear off some red petals from his shoulder and produce a handful of what looks like seeds from his hands. TIM has never seen him use the seeds during his entire time on Omega, though TIM suspects it's because there is no dirt or any organic ground to place them in making, them useless to use now, but Solus takes them regardless as he is eager to study them.

"Ah, splendid. These will do nicely. So close to ground breaking discovering. Will revolutionize modern medicine for all people."

Swampfire ties up the remaining eight mercenaries. He then faces Solus with friendly smile

"Well I better take off. Never know when someone else will need my help. Take care doc." Swampfire said.

They both exchange a handshake.

"Yes, always a pleasure. Stay safe out there. Will get back to research and continue making discoveries. (looks at corpses and tied up mercenaries) Don't worry about them. Will have them taken care of. Good day Swampfire." Mordin says to the Samaritan.

Swampfire nods and heads off toward the exit to the next level of the station. He glances at the restrained mercenaries with a look of uncertainty and walks away.

TIM knows the doctor will make good on what he said, and he had the other mercenaries killed, and displayed the bodies as a warning to the other mercenaries not to come near his medical practice and that would ensure some peace for a time. He takes note again of the Samaritan's hesitation to kill and wonders why they were so hesitant at first. Like the last video, the Samaritan walks into an alleyway and a green flash is seen. He spots a blue and black blur leaving the area where Swampfire disappeared.

"What is that blur?" TIM mutters

Third Video

The next footage takes place within the Afterlife nightclub that Aria runs. It was tricky getting any recordings at all from the establishment, but TIM managed to get this one before it was cut off along with the rest of the feed from the bar.

What stands out the most from the usual commotion from the bar is the one man not drinking or dancing in the club. A man with graying hair, yellow-gold armored plating and mismatched eyes with a scar on the right side of his face. Zaeed Massani was on a job. He was sitting at the bar with a drink in his hand and staking out the area looking for someone, or some people as he spots a table with a salarian, a human and a krogan enjoying drinks while they laugh during their conversation.

This next part of the recording gets disoriented for a few minutes due to having to hack Aria's systems, which was spotty at best. TIM had to fast-forward through most of the static. One minute it shows Zaeed walking toward the group. (static) Than it shows him talking to the trio and they share a look of unease and hostility when looking at the bounty hunter (static). Next it shows Zaeed throwing the human over the bar and then punching the salarian who tried to sneak up behind him. (static) Next scene shows Zaeed being through across the floor by the krogan. (static) People are either leaving or backing away from the brawl. (static) Camera spots Aria and her men looking at the scene over the balcony of the second floor, she instructs the men to just watch and see how this plays out. (static) the human grabs an asari clubber, who screams as he pulls a gun and points it at her. (static) Zaeed is facing the trio who have regrouped and are using the asari as a hostage. Zaeed simply fold his arms and looks at the group as if he has already won this fight.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." came the gruff reply of the bounty hunter

"Back the fuck up before I blow this bitch's head off!" the human shouted

The asari whimpers as he puts the gun to her temple.

"My friend really doesn't like it when people like you rough up the ladies." Zaeed warned "That's a big no, no in his book."

The three men look at each other and look around the crowed, they quickly avert their gaze from Aria, who merely looks around the room herself wondering where this "friend' of Zaeed's is hiding.

"Who the fuck you talking about old man!?" the human shouts

This next moment made TIM widen his eyes and stand up straight in his chair when he first saw this video. A blue see-through outline of what looked like a moth man-like being phased through the ground and appeared behind the trio, right behind the human bounty. Zaeed smirked and the crowd gasped quietly as the mothman moved to the right side of the man's head and whispered into his ear.

"Me…" said an eerie voice

The man's eyes snapped wide open and turned to strike the mothman with his gun, but his hand went right through the mothman and the moment it went through, his hand was frozen solid in a block of ice. Everyone looked at the scene in shock, while Aria looked at it with a look that said she was intrigued. Before the man could process what just happened a bullet went through his arm shattering his hand and the gun. The man let out a yell and the asari screamed. He let her go as the pain caught up with him while the moth man became tangible and swooped up the asari. Both became intangible and passed right through the stunned krogan who was about the charge but then he became encased head to toe in ice and unable to move. The salarian was about to use his own gun but it was shot out of his hand. It was revealed to be Zaeed who fired the shots with his own pistol. He then walked up to the salarian who was holding his hand in pain and sucker punched him in the face, knocking him out.

The mothman landed and became tangible as he placed the asari down who was still shaking from the experience. She then got a better look at the mothman and was left in awe by the sight. The mothman has four wings, a pair of antennas on the back of his head. He has a black body with cyan patches on his arms, shoulders, legs, the back of his wings, and the back of his neck that resemble ice chunks. Each patch has thick blue outlining except for the ones on his wings, which are outlined in black. There is also a black line that runs on the edge of the outer margin on the back of each wing. On his torso are three blue plates. One resembling the chest, a shorter plate under the chest, and one resembling the stomach. On his face are blue cheeks and underjaw, a mouth that always shows bluish white teeth, and large green tinted eyes. The top of his head also sports a blue Y-shaped marking that extends over his scalp. He has four pointed fingers and a thumb on each hand, and two toes on each foot and a third toe-like extension on his ankles. The hourglass symbol was on his chest.

His wings and antennas began to fold around his body and looked like he was wearing a cloak. This gave him a phantom-like appearance. He looked at the asari who was clearly unsettled by his unusual appearance.

"Are you alright miss?" the Moth asked in a concerned tone (his moth never moved or opened when he spoke, which made more unnerving for the asari)

The Asari broke out of her shock as she realized this being saved her from the madmen.

"Y…Yes, I' alright…thank you so much, b…but who…what are you?' the asari stuttered

TIM notes that not everyone in the crowd appears to be surprised by the moth aliens presence. The usual omega resident has seen the Samaritans at least once, but the new residents and visitors have only heard stories of them and rarely see them unless they stumble upon their fights, or are the victims in the crimes. The moth gave the asari a friendly smile.

"The names Big Chill and no thanks are needed, it's all in a day's work." Big Chill says.

The asari smiles and gives him a grateful node as her friends come to check on her and make sure she's okay. The crowed begins to go back to their clubbing as this is Omega and violent commotions are just the norm for everyone. Zaeed drags the three targets together…or drag the two unconscious to the frozen krogan. He then approaches the Samaritan and gives a tried and annoyed look.

"(sighs)You couldn't have shown up before a giant reptile threw me across the bloody room." Zaeed complains

Big Chill places his right hand behind his head and gives him a sheepish smile.

"Heh heh, sorry about that. Had to stop a mugging on the way here. It couldn't be helped." Big Chill Sheepishly replied

Zaeed rolls his eyes and shakes his head. "You Samaritans and your heart of gold…though I guess that's why people love you…except for the people you go after, that lot would love to kill you." Zaeed notes. Big Chill looks amused.

"Heh, they can try." Big Chill said "I'm sure some of them tried to take a shot at you too."

"Eh, comes with the job." the bounty hunter replies as he amusingly shrugs his shoulders

Aria is shown descending the stairs as the two continue talking. She approaches them and interrupts their conversation.

"Well, that was quite a show you put on Samaritan." Aria said coolly "Though I prefer it outside and not messing up my bar."

The two looks at the Queen of Omega. Big Chill has cautious look while Zaeed has his usual calm expression, not really phased by talking to a person that could have killed as soon as she gave the word.

"Sorry about the mess, didn't think they would make that big of a scene." Big Chill apologized

Aria looked at the Samaritan and their eyes met. Even though he had no pupils and little facial expression, TIM could tell that he was trending lightly with his words. TIM also notes that Aria still has the same fascinated look she had before, he wouldn't put it past her to have spies everywhere trying to follow the Samaritans to wherever they go to hide, of course they disappear too fast for them to follow. It seems that Aria was in a forgiving mood because she waved her hand in dismissal with an amused expression.

"Tell you what, keep it outside for now on and will call it even." Aria replied.

Big Chill was confused, but TIM knew why she was fine with it. The Samaritans have been keeping her enemies in check with their vigilantism and keeping away from her own operations.

Arai turned to Zaeed "Zaeed" she said

"Aria" Zaeed calmly replied

With that she walks away and leave the two to carry out their bounty. Big Chill lifts the frozen krogan with little effort and flies through the wall as he became intangible. Zaeed dragged the human and salarian on the ground, muttering, clearly displeased that he must drag them to the docking area.

The video changes feed and now the camera in the docking area showing a well-dressed turian with two batarian guards. One of the guard's hands Zaeed a case and the guards take the human and salarian away. The frozen krogan is carried off by two krogan enforcers. What TIM notes is that the Big Chill doesn't show any sign of unease when the men are taken away to be what he most certainly knows is to be killed. It's possible that he just isn't as bothered as Swampfire, but other recordings have shown that the other Samaritans are gradually accepting the lawlessness and crime-controlled society of omega.

After the employers, Zaeed turns to the Samaritan and hands his share of the bounty. TIM noted that usually the Samaritans would turn down the offer of money from residents on Omega, then they stared to join the bounty hunter on jobs on Omega after they became better associated with him. TIM could only assume that they needed finances to live and hide. They normally only joined Zaeed on hunt and capture jobs, so far, they have not joined on any kill jobs. The bounty hunter and Samaritan shook hands

"Till next Samaritan" Zaeed stated.

"Take care Zaeed." Big Chill replies.

Big Chill unfolds his wings and becomes intangible as he flies through the ceiling while Zaeed walks away.

Fourth Video (no audio)

The video shows a turian in blue armor whose face is covered by a helmet, this is the vigilante known as Archangel, and he is currently hiding behind a crate being shot at by 15 Eclipse mercenaries…inside the Eclipse base. Archangel tried to eliminate Jaroth, leader of the Eclipse on Omega. He failed but managed to kill the leader's brother along with many of his men.

The gunfire stopped, and Archangel looks from his cover to notice the Eclipse were sending in a heavy mech to charge through his cover as it stared to fire its weaponry at the vigilante. Archangel managed to aim his sniper rifle for a head shot but it fired off a series of mini missiles that forced Archangel to take cover. The mech was five feet away from Archangels position, when a dark figure pounced on the mech which resulted in the mech stumble as it attempted to knock the figure off. Archangel and the Eclipse were surprised to see a Samaritan appear from nowhere.

The Samaritan has a black and white color. One green cyclops eye in the middle of his head. He has two antennae and a tail each featuring a plug on the tips. He has four fingers on each hand with similar plugs on the tip of each finger. He has only two front toes on each foot. The hourglass symbol is located on its chest. This Samaritan goes by the alias: Feedback.

Feedback pierces the head of the mech with both his antennas and pierces its back with his tail. Energy begins to surge from the appendages as the Samaritan begins to siphon electricity from the mech, which began to drain it the point where it ran out of power as it collapsed. Feedback jumped into the air. Mid-way in the air the Samaritan aimed his arms at the stunned mercenaries and fired a surge of electrical blasts from the tips of his fingers. The blast hit the middle of the group and a small explosion that sent the mercenaries scattering across the room from being shocked or pushed by the shock wave.

This video stands out to TIM because this was the first incident where a Samaritan was confirmed to have killed his enemies. Most of the mercenaries were either electrocuted to death or died from impact with the walls at a speed that broke through their shield and crushed their bones.

The next feed shows outside of the Eclipse base as Feedback and Archangel run from another group led by Jaroth himself, who has an enraged facial expression.

TIM notes how Feedback showed no distress from killing, he had no reaction to his actions.

Fifth Video (no audio)

The feed showed a seemingly abandoned warehouse. Five seconds later the wall breaks open as a krogan flies through and lands on its face. The krogan gets up and is revealed to be Garm, the leader of Omega's Blood Pack, and he turns to the wall with an angry glare as a giant red figure jumps through with an injured Archangel in its hands.

The Samaritan is approximately twelve feet tall, has well developed muscles, two pairs of four-fingered arms, and red skin. A black stripe goes from his chin to his lower lip, and he has four yellow eyes: a main pair, and a smaller pair below them. He wears a white T-shirt with a black line going down it, black pants, and fingerless gloves. The hourglass symbol is located on the upper left shoulder. This Samaritan goes by the alias: Four Arms.

He carried Archangel in his second pair of arms while he had two vorcha in his primary arms. Without hesitation, he smashed the heads of the vorcha together, causing them to explode upon impact and splattering the Samaritan in the face. Four Arms is unfazed by the gore. He tosses the bodies right at Garm who ducks down as the bodies fly over him and splatter into the wall behind him. As he got back up, he saw the Samaritan leap 30 ft into the air and disappeared into the lower levels or the area.

The video ended. TIM wondered why the Samaritans suddenly changed tactics and resorted to killing their enemies. Not that it really mattered to TIM as it just means they would be better soldiers for the mission if Shepard could get them onboard.

Sixth Video (no audio)

Next video shows the upper level buildings. This building is where the Omega Blue Suns leader Taarak is known to reside. A few seconds, later a Blue Sun gunship arrives and is hovering near the level of the building Taarak lives. The windows burst as what appears to be a wave made of crystal pushes through and begins to loop around the building and forming a makeshift slide. Two individuals are seen sliding down the slide and flying into the air.

The first one to land is another Samaritan. He appears to be a silicon-based life form. His body is composed of pale green crystals. He sports four crystal shards on his back and has a sharp head with yellow eyes. He wears a uniform which was black on the right half and white on the left with a black patch on the left shoulder where the hourglass symbol is located. This Samaritan goes by the alias: Diamondhead.

Diamondhead holds out his arms for the second individual about to land near him and catches Archangel. He sets Archangel down, who appears to be slightly disoriented from the swirling diamond construct. Both turn their head to the approaching gunship that is preparing to fire at them. Diamondhead gets in front of the recovering Archangel and places his palms on the ground. As the gunships fires missiles at the duo, a wall of diamond shoots up from the ground that covers both Diamondhead and Archangel how take cover behind the wall at the missiles hit and engulfs the wall in an explosion.

The smoke clears, and the wall is shown to have held again the attack. Diamondhead jumps on top of the wall and fires off diamond shards from his hands which aim for the gunship's engines and cockpit. Both areas were hit, and the gunship begins to descent near the duo.

Diamondhead and Archangel are shown jumping off the roof as the gunship crashes on the roof but surprisingly remains intact.

TIM finds this alien fascinating as it has proven to be the most durable of the Samaritans, even more so than Four Arms, as no bullets or explosives have ever managed to make a dent in Diamondhead. TIM had his agents on Omega acquire samples of the shards Diamondhead leaves behind for research. Not surprisingly, residents on Omega manage to collect these shards and sell the for high price due to their durability, high quality and exoticism. Many have tried to corner the Samaritan with the intent of capturing him and use him as a living diamond mine. It's this reason that the Samaritan is rarely seen anymore and only shows up for dire situations such as this incident with Archangel.

After the first three months, the Samaritans have formed an alliance of some sorts with Archangel and his band of merry men. The Samaritans teaming up with Archangels group has earned them bigger threats from the mercenary groups who are frequently targets of Archangel and his group.

TIM opens the next video. It was also the last video from Omega surveillance cameras.

Seventh Video

This video shows a squatting area for a group of Vorcha talking and fighting among themselves for the scraps of food and supply they've acquired. They are considered violent and idiotic vermin by most of the other races, the Blood Pack are the only ones known to recruit them to be expandable foot soldiers.

What stood out to TIM was one vorcha that was walking along the edge of the group, hugging the wall. This vorcha appeared different physically from the others. He looked less rabid and cleaner when compared to the others and facial expression looked more calm, gentle, and less menacing. He wore a torn-up poncho that covered his shoulders and upper body as if he was concealing something, something he didn't want the other vorcha to see. The most obvious difference that TIM noticed was that his eyes were not the typical bloodshot red eyes of a vorcha, but instead were brilliant emerald green eyes. They do not possess the psychotic or murderous intent of most vorcha but instead keeps a stoic look in his eyes as he looks at the others.

The green-eyed vorcha stares in the direction of where the video feed is coming from for a brief second, but TIM can tell he knew that he was being watched, especially considering what happens next. The vorcha disappears for the feed. After a few moments, a surge of green electricity is being shot from the direction he left, and it hits five vorcha near that location, electrocuting the five vorcha, who drop dead and with burnt spots on their bodies where the electricity hit.

Three vorcha charge at the location while the rest draw their weapons and begin to fire at the location. One of the charging vorcha was shot back at the group with another surge of electricity that killed that vorcha and the two that he slammed into and no doubt breaking their bones.

Next, a giant figure is shown approaching the scene. His back is facing the camera, but TIM can see two large conductor-like devices protruding from his back and his green skin with stitching's all over his body…than the video cuts off.

When TIM first watched this video, he was initially confused. He wondered why the video stopped when the video came to life again only this time, there was no more of the video. Instead, what appeared was a black screen and a glowing green circle in the center of the image, and what looked like green circuity were visible on the ends of the image. What further surprised TIM was the circle bending in a manner that made it look like it was frowning at him. Next came a green text that read "Shows over" and the feed cut.

It seems the Samaritans became aware that they were being watched, because after that, Cerberus lost all feed from Omegas cameras, leaving them blind to the events that occur on Omega, having to rely on agents physically there to record a fight or rely on recordings from residents who post their own videos. However, most are removed by an unknown hacker (presumably a Samaritan) almost immediately after they are posted. TIM's computer experts are always vigilant for them so they can download them fast.

Eight Video: Collection of videos at various times

While he no longer had Omegas cameras, he did learn something that made him curious. He checked other feeds and found one of two turians discussing the vorcha overpopulation. One turian was one of Aria's who has been instructed to figure out a solution to the nuisance the vorcha have started to become. The other turian wore black armor with white highlights and a heavy trench coat that covered most of him. His face's skin/exo-skeleton was white grey/light grey with a green marking going down between his eyes and over above his eyes. It almost looked like the Samaritan's hourglass symbol painted on his face. What stood out more was the turians eyes were emerald green. The guard was offering discussing rewards for anyone who can reduce the vorcha numbers, and the green-eyed turian seemed intrigued and said he and his "buddies" would be interested in the job. An hour later TIM's agents confirmed that a Samaritan decimated the vorcha population to a more "manageable" size.

Another feed showed a Quarrian wearing a tattered poncho talking to a quarrian vendor, Kenn, in the market area of Omega. The Poncho Quarrian's suit was black with forest green markings and his helmet had a light green visor. TIM could take an educated guess that his eyes are green as well. Kenn was telling the green quarrian of his massive debt that he required during his pilgrimage which left him having to repay an elcor vendor until he had the means to leave the station and continue his pilgrimage. The green quarrian assured him that he "knew a guy" that would take care of it, and left Kenn confused and worried that he may have started trouble.

Another feed showed the Samaritan, Diamondhead talking to the elcor vendor and dropping a bag of what was his own shards on the table and made it clear to the elcor with an intimidating tone that the quarrian was free to go. The intimidated elcor complied and took the crystals.

Minutes later the green poncho quarrian returns to tell Kenn the good news and hands the vendor a bag of Diamondhead shards. The shocked and speechless vendor accepts the shards and excessively thanks the green quarrian who waves goodbye to Kenn as he walks away from the stand where the vendor begins to pack his things.

Another feed shows a salarian in white armor with black highlight and sporting a trench coat, and red-white skin-tone like Dr. Solus. He is conversing with a group of humans who reveals to him of a batarian bartender in Afterlife that's posing the drinks of all the human patrons, and how he killed friends of these humans. The salarian looks at them with a determined face and told them not to worry about it, that he "knew someone" who could deal with the killer bartender. He leaves the humans confused and concerned.

Switching to feed in the club. The Samaritan, Big Chill, phases through the floor and becomes tangible and folds his wings around himself. The patrons are stunned to see the cloaked Samaritan just show up while Aria looks down from her "throne" upstairs. The cloaked insectoid calmly and menacingly confronts the bartender about poisoning his customers. A turian patron hears this and walks up the confront the bartender himself. The bartender is starting to get agitated as he claims he doesn't know what he is talking about. The Samaritan asks if he hates turians as well and would soon poison them as well. The turian demands the bartender answers. The bartender angrily pulls a gun on the Samaritan but the turian patron pulls his own gun and kills the bartender, claiming its better to be safe than sorry. Big Chill looks up at Aria, who has a smirk at how Big Chill turned the patrons against the bartender. Than out of nowhere, he pulls out a Diamondhead shard and places it no the bar, saying "Sorry about the mess" before becoming intangible and phasing into the ground.

The next feed shows the former leader of Omega, Patriarch telling stories to young omega residents and giving advice that would help them survive during their time on Omega. A young krogan enters the room. He wears fully black armor and has red/orange-yellow skin, a closer look at the krogan's face makes TIM think he looks like a younger version of Patriarch. What stands out is the green bandanna wrapped around the krogan's head platting.

He approaches the elder krogan and the elder seems pleased to see him again, TIM learns from his agents that the young krogan has visited the elder many times to talk and learned from the elder krogan's experience on Omega. However, the younger krogan came to warn Patriarch that the Blood Pack have marked him for assassination to undermine Arias authority and to silence him from revealing any knowledge he possess of the other Omega groups. Patriarch was angered of the news but seemed to be accepting of this and talked as if he was going to face the threat head on. The younger Krogan stops him and offers to be the elders krantt and he would gather his "comrades" to fight to restore his honor and status among omega's powerhouses. The elder krogan is astounded by the younger one's desire to fight for him and accepts with renewed sense spirit.

The feed switches between individual fights of the younger krogan and Samaritans fighting Blood pack assassin at different place and times. According to TIM's agents, the Samaritans are still thwarting attempts on the krogan's life.

TIM found another video that takes place an hour before the younger krogan's meeting with Patriarch. Aria keeps the upper areas free of any cameras and possible spyware, so he had to rely on agents to get as close as they could to the upper floor and see the asari and who she was meeting. What caught TIM's attention was that the agent swore he saw a batarian wearing the hourglass symbol on his armor.

The video lacked audio as Aria has no doubt installed means to make eavesdropping as difficult as possible. But TIM could clearly see a batarian sitting with Aria. The Batarian wore black and white armor, and his skin was yellow-brownish. The eye is black like all batarians, but TIM had no doubt the irises would be green if they were visible. And the video confirmed that the Batarian does in fact have an hourglass symbol on his left shoulder pad. The batarian seems frustrated by whatever they're talking about while Aria still possess her usual cold smile as the batarian accepts whatever she told him. TIM figured it was about protecting Patriarch, but the reaction and body language told TIM that Aria knew something that the batarian didn't like.

TIM ended the video and compiled all the videos he selected to play for Shepard when they meet'.

TIM closed his eyes. He thought about the batarian with the hourglass symbol and deduced that the Krogan, Salarian, Vorcha, Turian and Quarrian all wore the symbol under their ponchos or coats. He suspected that these could be the select few that the Samaritans trusted to be their eyes and ears of omega and alert them of any danger to civilians. But he found it odd that these honorary Samaritans "helpers" had a black and green color scheme to their physical appearance, is it coincidence or do they wear these colors to alert each other that they are on the same side? It wouldn't be unheard of to see various races who hate each other team up, as Archangels vigilantes composed of species that are normally enemies. And of course, Shepard's old crew. But then another thought struck TIM.

"_There never seen together_." TIM thought.

No video or reports from Cerberus agents or other witnesses, have ever show any of the Samaritans together. He thought it was to keep them from being ambushed, but there is also no footage of them meeting up with any of their helpers, and the helpers disappear as quickly as the Samaritans. TIM thought back to the time stamps of the appearances of both Samaritans and the helpers. When one of them appears it's the only one to be sighted at that time, and after their work is done, they will disappear, and another would pop up later and at a different location.

Were they working in shifts? Wouldn't it be more practical to have multiple Samaritans out in the field than just one at a time? Because there have been incidents where a second Samaritan in the field could have responded and assisted, and how do they choose which incident to intervene? And where do the helpers go when a Samaritan appears? What about that green flash and blue blur? Was it some sort of advanced transportation technology? Because they always seemed to arrive at a scene with perfect timing.

TIM was snapped out of his musing as his terminal alerted him of a message from Miranda. It was a report of Shepard's improving condition and assured him that she would be ready within the week.

"_Maybe Shepard can get some answers. And hopefully recruit them…" _TIM thought

Post-Shepard Awaking

TIM has been examining the dossier list repeatedly until he was sure he found the right men and women for the mission. He also examined the crew files of the Normandy as a precaution…again. While he was pleased to hear news that Shepard was up and about…and apparently fighting rogue mechs within the facility after being awake for five minutes.

"Damn you Wilson." TIM muttered, slightly irritated "_I should've known the Shadow Broker would get to someone on the inside." _he thought.

TIM regained his focused and finished checking the crew manifest, he is now confident with his choice in the ship's crew, especially a crew with Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor. They will ensure no more incidents with Cerberus personal, although he is confident in his choice of crew, because they lack the greed, deceit and ambition to sabotage the mission, especially when they know the importance of the mission.

He returned the screen to the dossier list and was about to check the Samaritan dossiers again…until a message from Miranda came, telling him that Shepard was waiting for his call. He then activated the holographic projector in front of him and waited for Shepard's image. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

The lifelike hologram of Commander Shepard appeared. A red-headed pale skin woman, she wore her iconic black N7 armor, this one however was created and designed by Cerberus after her original was destroyed beyond recovery. The left side of her face showed glowing orange scars that resembled circuitry, as result of the healing process being interrupted by the traitor Wilson. Hopefully Miranda and Doctor Chakwas can ensure that her healing process is completed and ready for when the time comes. He also noted her pale skin complexion was very unusual…almost like a corpse. Most likely another side effect from being awoken early, though it shouldn't be a problem. Right now, she just needed to begin recruiting members for her team, especially the Samaritans. He gave a small smile as he found it humorous that she also possessed emerald green eyes. TIM took a long inhale of his cigarette.

"(inhaling smoke) Commander Shepard (exhaling smoke)."

Shepard crossed her arms and gave him a hard stare "Illusive Man…"

* * *

Author: Alright guys let me have it. I won't hold a grudge, I know my writing sucks and needs work. I assume most of you have played (or seen walkthroughs) mass effect so I wasn't as detailed as some expected me to be. I know some of the dialogue isn't as clever but I am working on it.

About the Story: The Ben in this story is an alternate Ben 10. The Ben from the cannon (I call him Ben Prime) will make an appearance somewhere in the story, but not for sometime. This Ben has the Master Control (for now until I think of a scenario where he loses it) and the omnitrix recalibrated and gave him a random list of ten aliens from the cannon material. I was originally going to start the story with explaining how Ben arrived to the mass effect, but I wanted to star off with him meeting Shepard as soon as possible, and he will in the next chapter. I'll explain how he arrived when Shepard goes through and ask them about their story, this will give me more time to explain the situation and continue with the story.


	2. Chapter 2

Author: My dialogue is not good, I know that. Its hard to think of what characters would say or do without making them too OC. Shepard is a character you create so making her however I want is no problem. Ben is an alternate Ben like Ben 23 and No-Watch-Ben, so he'll be different from the Prime Ben, especially when stranded on a lawless space station. Creating him is no different than creating my Shepard Character

I do not own **Mass Effect** or **Ben 10**. This is just for fun!

**Updated 5/7/2019**

* * *

Chapter 2: Meeting

Shepard Post-Freedoms Progress

Commander Gwen Shepard, born on the colony world, Mindoir, and sole survivor of the thresher maw attack on Akuze. She is the first human to join the council SPECTRE's, the elite operatives of the council. She is also now known as the Savior of the Citadel after leading an assault on the synthetic invaders known as geth, who were led by the malevolent alien machine known as Sovereign, a reaper whose sole purpose was to use the citadel as a giant mass rely to bring his fellow reapers back from the dark reaches of space and harvest all life in the galaxy as they have done with the ancient Protheans. During a routine check of the terminus system for geth activity, a mysterious ship attacked the USS Normandy ,and killed Shepard along with half the crew.

Two years later, she awakes to find out that Cerberus salvaged her body and used every resource available to resurrect Shepard, so she can stop the abduction of human colonists. Now, while she has no problem putting an end to colonist abductions, she had a big fucking problem with associating with the human supremacists who were behind the death of her squad on Akuze. Shepard was no stranger to loss. After batarian slavers raided her home colony and killed her family when she was sixteen, she was found by Alliance soldiers and from that day she decided to join, and take the fight to the basters. Now she is talking to the man that had a hand in the deaths of her friends and he expects her to just forget everything and work for him.

Shepard kept mentally yelling "_You motherfucking cocksucker!" _during her entire conversation with the Illusive Man.

Sadly, she had to keep herself from going on a homicidal rampage through the Cerberus facility (big mistake giving her back her biotics, especially the enhancements), because he was right about one thing, the Reapers were a threat and needed to be taken care of immediately if the galaxy was going to have a chance to live. The way Shepard sees it, she can tear down Cerberus after the Reapers were dealt with, for now she had to play nice. While at the same time watch out for a potential double cross.

After the first meeting with the Illusive Man, Shepard to Freedoms Progress, the lasts human colony to be attacked by the Collectors. During the trip she was overjoyed to run into Tali that they both hugged each other, one of the rare moments that Shepard would shut off the tough soldier persona and show the caring friend, especially with Tali who she viewed as a younger sister.

After the reunion, Shepard parted ways with Tail, as they both had a mission to complete, they hugged once last time and said their goodbyes before they left. Shepard swore she saw Jacob smirk a he saw her go from hard-ass commander to giddy big sister with the young quarrian.

Now she was wrapping up her second meeting with the Illusive Man, who was in the middle of sending her dossiers for soldiers, mercenaries and scientist that would join the team for the suicide mission. Shepard would have preferred her old team, but they all went their separate ways and had their own live and duties to attend. Maybe she could get Anderson to convince the alliance or the council to help, or at least reinstate her SPECTRE status, especially if she wants to avoid relying on Cerberus for everything. Their meeting was about to wrap until the Illusive Man wanted to inform her of something else before she headed out.

(Exhaling smoke) "Three things before you go. First head to Omega and find Mordin Solus, he's a brilliant salarian scientist. Our intelligence suggests he may know how to counteract the collectors paralyzing seeker swarms." He told her.

"I haven't even started and you're already telling me what to do." Shepard gave him and annoyed look and crossed her arms.

"I'm giving you direction" TIM calmly replied "What you do with it is up to you. I'm sure you'll make the right decision. "

Shepard puts her arms down and sighs before looking at him again." What's the other two?" she asked.

TIM exhales smoke before speaking. "The second thing is equally as important and maybe even more." He brings up a holographic projection in front of Shepard. "These are ten dossiers from Omega, you'll notice seven of them are listed under one name."

Shepard rose and eyebrow as she looked at the dossiers listed under "Samaritans". She was even more baffled by the names on each dossier. "Swampfire, Big Chill, Kickin Hawk…What the hell are these guys supposed to be?"

TIM inhaled than exhaled smoke before looking at her again "Play the videos and find out."

Shepard wondered where he was going with this but decided "_What the hell_" and pressed the play button and eight videos. To say Shepard was stunned was putting it mildly as her eyes widen, her mouth hung wide open and her arms fell to her sides and muttered "What the hell…"

She was watching various aliens of unknown species that possessed what she could only describe as superpowers fighting mercenaries and protecting civilians. A plant man that could regenerate and shoot fire, a mothman that could phase through walls, a man made from diamonds! It was like she was watching a superheroes movie! She glanced at TIM for a brief second before refocusing on the videos, she was too immerse to respond to his sly smirk.

The eight videos were collection of known milky way aliens who are codenamed "the helpers". They share the color scheme of the seven unknowns and appear to be interacting with people who need help with different things. The video cuts to moments where those freaky seven aliens respond and help.

The videos end and Shepard look back to the Illusive man who calmly awaits her response.

Shepard looked at him stunned "Are…are these…?"

"They're real" TIM responds "We don't know where they came from or how they arrived on Omega, but for the last six months they have been acting as protectors for the residents who can't defend themselves from the criminal underworld. (Inhaling and exhaling smoke) This is what they can do against three of the most powerful mercenary groups on omega, now imagine how useful they could be against the collectors (exhaling smoke) or the reapers for the matter."

Shepard broke from her shock as he spoke, and immediately thought of how these guys could make a serious difference in the fighting the reapers.

"Again, what you do with this is your choice" TIM continues "But if you could convince these beings to help, you might have a chance with the collectors. If you could convince them to contact their people, then we could ally with an army of them, and maybe than we would have a chance to stop the reapers."

Shepard looked away from the dossiers and regained her composure, returning her stoic and calm expression to her face and was Commander Shepard again and asks "What's the third thing?"

"I found a pilot I think you might like." TIM answers without missing a beat " I hear he's one of the best. Someone you can trust."

The transmission ended and TIM's hologram disappears as voice spoke from behind Shepard."Hey commander."

Shepard turned around immediately in recognition of the voice who was in fact Jeffry "Joker" Monroe. Pilot of the Normandy and one of her best friends. She looked him stunned, yet happy at the same time "Joker?"

" Just like old times huh?" he responds with a jolly tone.

Minutes later

Shepard and Joker are walking through the hall catching each other up along the way.

"Can't believe it's you Joker" Shepard said with a cheery tone.

Joker replies " Look who's talking, I saw you get spaced. "

Shepard shrugs and smiles before she responds "Got lucky…(annoyed) with a lot of strings attached. (Curious) How'd you get here?"

Joker looks down in sadness as he recounts what happened "...It all fell apart without you commander." His tone turned serious as he looked back at her. "Everything you stirred up, the council just wanted it gone…" His tone became sad again. "Teams broken up…records were sealed…and I was grounded."

Shepard looked at him sadly before responding "Joker…I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault..." his tone lightens up. "...and you're here now and we're back at it again…Except its not with the Alliance but they're no help. "

"So, Cerberus?" She asks.

"The Alliance took away the one thing that mattered to me" Joker replied (his tone became irritated) "Hell yeah I joined Cerberus. "

Shepard was still not all on board with this situation"You really trust the Illusive Man?" she asked the pilot.

"Well I don't trust anyone that makes more than I do." he jokes

Shepard chuckles a little. Joker seems satisfied that he got a laugh. They both stand by a window and he continues. "But they aren't all bad. Saved your life, let me fly, and there's this"

Lights start to illuminate through the window

Joker looks at her excitedly "They only told me about it last night." he says.

The lights slowly turn on to reveal a larger and newer version of the SS Normandy.

Shepard's jaw is open but has a smile on her face, and Joker almost tears up at the sights of his "baby".

Joker sniffles a little at the sight "It's good to be home, huh commander?" he asks her.

Shepard at her pilot and friend "I guess will have to give her a name?" She said cheerily.

Joker nodes with joy as he slightly (and humorously) tears up a little.

* * *

Narrator

The Quarantine zone, a mist of plague engulfs the area and bodies of the victims are piled up and are being burned throughout the area. A blue sun mercenary is sent into a wall by green electricity and drops dead to the ground. The source of the electricity is a hulking figure with conductors in his back, a Samaritan.

The Samaritan has an appearance like the classic depiction of Boris Karloff's version of Victor Frankenstein's monster. He has a muscular body and a human nose. He had dark grayish green-yellow skin, a black mullet hairstyle with brown at the end, sideburns, and two tower-like conductor coils on his back. The Samaritan has black pants with lines on them, with a triangle dash in the middle, that glowed green. He has stitch-like lines on his arms (right arm: half of his shoulder and left arm: halfway from his glove). He has brown finger-less gloves. He wears a black shirt and has three black and green bolts on his chest and one black bolt on each side of his neck, with all bolts having a green line on them. He has white lines on his waist that connect to the hourglass symbol on his belt. This Samaritan was known as Frankenstrike.

Frankenstrike 

Frankenstrike looked around the room, twenty dead blue suns lay before him. He has been clearing out the mercenaries while protecting Mordin Solus clinic. The doctor has succeeded in creating a serum that can cure the plague but needs a way to distribute it throughout the quarantine zone. Until he comes up with a solution, all Frankenstrike can do is clear out the mercenaries, find any civilians still alive and take them back to the clinic. So far, he has managed to kill all the Blue Suns in the zone, now he just needs to deal with the vorcha.

"Too bad Archangel isn't hear, he would love a chance to kill more of these basters." Frankenstrike musingly says to himself (Michael Dorn Voice)

He tried giving him a call earlier, but he hasn't been picking up. This started to concern Frankenstrike, but he had to focus on the situation here first. He's sure Archangel is fine. Probably took the boys out for another raid on Eclipse hideouts.

He began to march forward to find more survivors, trying to ignore the piles of bodies burning in the middle of the streets. He has been coming to the quarantine zone for a week now and he is still not use to it.

Frankenstrike looks at them angrily "Fucking Blue Suns…" he mutters

Two weeks since the plague appeared, and they gun downed the victims and any human who was unfortunate to get caught. There were only two species that haven't been affected by the plague: vorcha and humans. Vorcha are immune to all disease but are considered too stupid to have created a man-made plague. So, they turn the blame to the humans as the cause and start to shoot any they see. Well, they weren't expecting Frankenstrike to pop in and make their lives miserable. Frankenstrike is allowed in because Samaritans are immune to the disease as well and have been helpful in containing the plague and the turf war from spreading outside the district.

So far Frankenstrike has stumbled upon two human scavengers pilfering the apartments of victims, Frankenstrike only had to point and glare at them to give them the message that they needed to stop. Next, he found a man and woman hiding from the blue suns. He told them he would clear them out and create and opening for them to run to the clinic. The man was hesitant to go there thinking that the haven Mordin set up was too god to be true, but Frankenstrike eventually convinced him to go. With the Suns taken care of they should have made it safely to the clinic.

He is brought out of his thoughts by the sound of coughing as he reached the area close to the exit back to the upper levels of Omega. He discovers a barley conscious batarian laying on the ground with his back against the wall. Frankenstrike kneels in front of him. The batarian became aware of a presence and slowly raised his head and his eyes widen as the size of Frankenstrike.

"What…(cough) A Samaritan? What are…(Cough)" the batarian tried to say.

"Easy, try not to talk, just relax I'm going to take you to the clinic." Frankenstrike gently spoke.

Frankenstrike attempts to reach for the batarian but the man pulls out a gun and attempts to threaten Frankenstrike.

"Get away human lover! I not going to the doctor that shelters the plague bringers, they can all go to h…(cough)"

He begins to pass out, Frankenstrike doesn't have any more medical gel on him he needs to get him to Mordin now.

"Hey, hey, hey stay with me." Frankenstrike tries to keep him awake "Don't close your eyes, just hang in there while I…"

Frankenstrike hears footsteps behind him. He jumps back to his feet and turns to face the possible enemies with both hands raised and electricity flaring in his hands and his coils pumping more electricity into him.

"WOAH! Easy big guy!" came a female voice

Frankenstrike stops and looks at the three-armed people before him. One is a redheaded woman in black armor with the red logo N7 on the left side of her chest plate. Frankenstrike knows of that logo, it's worn by the best of Alliance military. This woman could be more of a challenge compared to the mercenaries he's been fighting non-stop. He had to admit that he was stunned for a second when he looked at her, her face was so shockingly familiar, and her eyes…those emerald eyes reminded him of _her_ eyes… He shook those thoughts away and refocused, now was not the time to be nostalgic.

Her companions were a dark-skinned man and a light-skinned woman. The man was muscular, short black hair, and the way he carried himself screamed soldier, he wore a combat black suit and carried a shotgun. The woman on the other hand screamed beautiful but deadly, a classic femme fatal vibe. She had black raven hair and wore a white skintight combat suit. She held a military grade pistol. What stood out about the redhead's companions made him glare at the trio, the logo on both their uniforms.

"Cerberus!" he growled.

Frankenstrike heard of the pro-human organization from Mordin. They were a terrorist and human supremacist group that have caused suffering for aliens, the Alliance and any other humans who sympathize with aliens. He wondered if these were the ones spying on Samaritan activities with Omega cameras. Well, it looks like they're here for him, so it couldn't be a coincidence. Before he could electrocute them, the redhead lowered her pistol in her right hand and raised her left hand as if she was calling for a truce. Her companions seemed surprised by her actions but kept their guns aimed at the Transylian.

"I'm not with Cerberus. I'm Commander Shepard."

* * *

**Shepard- Normandy-3 hours ago**

Shepard is in the cockpit with Joker who is sitting in the chair as he watches the videos of the Samaritans on Shepard's omni tool.

"Superheroes?" Joker asked

"Vigilantes, yes." Shepard said

"No Archangel is a vigilante, he doesn't have any superpowers, these guys have powers." Joker said incredulously

"Biotics could be considered superpowers and we're pretty use to people having them." Shepard retorted

"That's different" Joker said excitedly "These guys are indestructible and can walk through walls! Holy shit was going to team up with superheroes. (Jolly laugh) I thought getting a new Normandy was awesome."

Shepard smiled "Yeah well that's if I can convince them to help us, they might turn us down." she stated.

"Saving the galaxy from alien abductors and ancient killing machines, I would say that qualifies as superhero work." Joker reasoned.

"Well they might be hesitant to join up a crew mostly composed of Cerberus." Shepard pointed out.

"I mean yeah there's that little hiccup, but you're good with negotiating, you'll think of something." Joker said in a laid-back tone.

"You make sound like it's that easy." Shepard said while smirking

"Only because you make it look easy." Joker said with his won smile

"Well will need to find them before their enemies do." came a voice with an Australian accent.

Shepard and Joker turn to see Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor approaching.

"Not many friends on Omega I take it?" Shepard asked

"The Samaritans have been busting operations of all the powerhouses on Omega" Jacob said "Making them local heroes to the people that couldn't stand up to them before." He finished with with a tone that made it sound like he idolizes the Samaritans

"The only powerhouse they haven't crossed is Aria" Miranda said "Who they appear to have a truce or agreement with her."

"So, Aria runs Omega?" Shepard asked

"She took over most of Omega operations when she defeated the last Omega boss." Miranda explained "However, she clashes with the three major mercenary groups on Omega who make attempts to undermine her authority."

"But ever since the Samaritans showed up, their focus has been taken off Aria and aimed at them." Jacob added

"So, she benefits from having them around." Shepard summarized "Think she would know where to find them?"

"She probably had her people try to follow them before, but the Samaritans are good at keeping their tracks covered." Miranda explained "They are never seen together, and they only appear on public one at a time."

Shepard rose an eyebrow at that, wouldn't it be more practical to have more than one person on patrol?

"However, we know that she was able to contact one of their Helpers." Jacob added "And based on the footage, it looks like she knows something they don't want her to know."

Shepard remember that footage, the batarian Helper kept his cool but she could tell he was frustrated by whatever Aria told him.

"Its most likely the reason the Samaritans leave Aria's operations alone." Miranda said "This also proves that she may know where a Samaritan is when one makes his appearance or are least discovered how to get in contact with one of their Helpers."

Shepard took in all the information as she decided what to do first.

"Well, we'll find out when we ask her." Shepard said as she turns to the pilot "Joker…"

"Omega?" Joker asked excitedly.

"Omega." Shepard said with an amused smile

Joker grins and begins to plot the course to Omega and recruit what he views as real life superheroes.

* * *

Shepard: Afterlife

Shepard and the Normandy crew arrived on Omega two hours later. After docking to the station, she was immediately greeted by the sight of the bounty hunter, Zaeed Massani, in the middle of "subduing" his latest bounty. She welcomed him to the crew and he agreed to meet back up with her after dropping off his latest bounty. She traversed the "piss hole" that Miranda descried as Omega, and Shepard was finding herself agreeing with the Cerberus agent. They eventually made their way to Afterlife where she was let in to meet with Aria. After she guns pointed in her face and was confirmed to be the Commander Shepard Aria had Shepard sit down with her. She asked Aria questions about the location of Mordin Solus and Archangel and Aria told her where to find them. The doctor was in the Quarantine zone helping victims of a mysterious virus that appeared two weeks ago and gave her a heads up that humans were being blamed for the virus and that she should watch her back with the aliens in the zone. Archangel is in the middle of a one-man war against the Blue Suns, the Eclipse and the Blood Pack. Shepard had to give the man this, he had balls. Aria suggested that she could sign up as a freelancer for the mercenaries' downstairs in the club to get close enough to help Archangel, and Shepard had to admit it was a good idea. No doubt Aria wants Shepard and Archangel to take down three of the biggest challengers to her authority. Now she needed to answer the big question, hopefully Aria would know the answer.

"What can you tell me about the Samaritans?" Shepard asked. Aria smirked at her question.

"I was wondering when you would eventually ask me about _them_?" Aria said with emphasis at the end "_They_ would be the perfect team for someone like you who always finds herself in the most unusual predicaments."

Shepard wondered why she put emphasis on 'them' and 'they', but she doubted she would get a straight answer. Aria knew something about the Samaritans and most likely used it as blackmail to keep them away from her operations on Omega.

"I'm not sure how I feel about my favorite vigilantes leaving but you no doubt have a mission that effects everyone and it would be more beneficial for me to have them go with you." Aria stated.

Shepard waited patiently but very eager to find them already. She'd be lying if she said if she didn't share Jokers excitement to meet what he would describe as "superheroes". She was sure Aria picked up on her eagerness because she smirked at her, making Shepard mentally groan for letting her guard down.

"The Samaritans are never seen together and no one knows have they get in touch with their "Helpers", but they do know how to make a grand appearance." Aria explained "My sources tell me that one of them is in the Quarantine Zone helping plague victims and humans who got trapped in the quarantine. He's a big green guy that goes by the name Frankenstrike."

Shepard almost laughed but kept her cool, they sounded like nicknames Joker would make up. She decided that she should pay the Samaritan a visit before he disappears. Shepard rises from her seat and keeps her neutral expression.

"Thanks for the info. I should go." Shepard stated.

"Tell the big guy I said hi." Aria said with a smile

Shepard descended the stair with Jacob and Miranda.

"So, Commander, what's the plan?" Jacob asked

"Two of the people were looking for are confirmed to be in the same location, might as well start with them." Miranda offered.

"Archangel might not last that long with the mercenaries." Jacob pointed out.

Shepard pondered before speaking.

"We would have a better time helping him with the Samaritans by our side." Shepard stated "It doesn't sound like they know what's happening to Archangel yet, so let's go find this "Frankenstrike" and make him and his friends aware of the situation and they can help Archangel while we get Mordin."

With her decision made the three made their way to the quarantine zone. She made sure to contact Zaeed and ask him to keep an eye on the Archangel situation.

* * *

Shepard: Quarantine Zone

After convincing the guards at the entrance to let them through, Shepard led her team through the slums and was horrified at the sight of the bodies field and burned in the streets.

"Jesus…" Jacob said horrified at the sight

"Probably the only thing people can do to stop the plague from spreading, this practice is as old as civilization itself." Miranda stated with a neutral tone.

Shepard seen worse, Sovereign and his husks are on top of that list. Thinking about the spikes "dragon teeth" that turns corpses into husks still sends a chill down her spine. Her thoughts were interrupted by coughing. The three stopped as the slowing began to go forward. Se heard talking up ahead.

"What…(cough) A Samaritan…"

Shepard's eyes lit up as she turned around a corner and followed the voices.

"Easy, try not to talk, just relax I'm going to take you to the clinic." came the gentle reply of a deep voice.

Shepard heard a gun being drawn.

"Get away human lover! I not going to the doctor that shelters the plague bringers, they can all go to h…(cough)"

Shepard and her team eventually spot a large kneeling figure with his back facing them. Two weird conductors were sticking out of his back.

"Hey, hey, hey stay with me. Don't close your eyes, just hang in there while I…"

The giant figure turns around and green electricity sparks from his hands as he holds them out in an offensive position. Shepard's immediately try to defuse the situation.

"WOAH! Easy big guy!" Shepard shouted

She was cautious but at the same time in awe of the sight of Frankenstrike. His appearance screamed Frankenstein monster with a more technological touch with the coils in his back.

So far, he didn't attack so maybe she could talk him down and listen to what she had to say. But his attention went from the ex-Spectre and turned it to Miranda and Jacob and his eyes narrowed and he took on an angry expression.

"Cerberus!" the giant growled.

"_Shit_…" Shepard thought

Shepard had to do something fast before the big guy started throwing shots at them. So, she surprised the Samaritan and her team by lowering her gun and holstering it and raised her hands in a non-threatening manner. This seemed to have got his attention he held off his attack, but he looked like he would fry her if she tried anything funny. "_Well, might as well be honest." _she thought.

"I'm not with Cerberus. I'm Commander Shepard." Shepard said calmly

The Samaritan rose an eyebrow in surprise but than gave her an unimpressed look.

"Commander Shepard died two years ago." he revealed.

Shit, these guys apparently stay up to date with galactic news. She is going to need to figure out a way to convince him. Telling him that she was dead and was put back together by Cerberus might not fly with him as the best explanation. Although he looks like the Frankenstein monster so maybe he would buy it?

"I wasn't dead I was stuck in a coma for two tears, I only woke up a few days ago." Shepard calmly replied

It wasn't the entire truth, but it was believable for the moment, and was partially true. This seemed to have got the Samaritan thinking, as it looked like he was still deciding if she was telling the truth.

"Alright Red if your Shepard, then why are you leading a team of Cerberus agents behind you?" Frankenstrike demanded

Shepard was slightly irked at the nickname "Red" but put it aside as she looked to her team for a moment, and thought how to explain this. Jacob gave her a shrug and Miranda gave her a look that said, "tread lightly". Shepard turned back to the Samaritan.

"I didn't get a choice at who would be the one's to rescue me." Shepard said "And while I will never be part of Cerberus, I can agree to a truce since there is an even bigger threat to face."

"And what threat is that Red?" the Samaritan asked

Still pissed by the nickname, but Shepard thought of what to tell him first, reapers were more of a conversation to have in a more secure area where we're less likely to get sniped.

"Their called the Collectors. "

"The Collectors? What do they have to do with this? " the Samaritan asked in a surprised tone. This surprised and confused Shepard as well.

"You know about them?" she asked. Frankenstrike gained an angry expression.

"I caught them on Omega trying to kidnap humans." the Samaritan revealed.

Shepard didn't like the sound of that and by the sound of things, the Samaritan wasn't a fan of their work either, so maybe there could be a team up after all. The coughing of the batarian behind Frankenstrike got everyone's attention and the giant aliens expression changed from anger to concern as he looked back to the batarian. He turns back to Shepard.

"Do you have any medical gel?" he asked the ex-spectre

Shepard nodded without hesitation. Frankenstrike step to the left side of the batarian.

"Than prove to me you're not Cerberus and help this man." The Samaritan stated.

Shepard will admit that she hasn't always been a big fan of batarians. Most people aren't, but Shepard especially considering what they did to her family on Mindoir. But then she reminded herself that this batarian wasn't those slavers and that she can't hate them all for being the same species. She approached the batarian and kneeled in front of him as she began to apply medi-gel.

"(cough) Get away hu-…(cough)" the batarian weakly said.

"Easy, this won't cure the plague, but it might help a bit." Shepard calmly said

The batarian started to breath easier. Frankenstrike looked relieved while the batarian looked at her with surprise in his eyes.

"You…helped me? Why?" the ill man asked, surprised by her help

"It's what I do" Shepard said. "I don't know if I can find a cure for this plague, but I'm gonna try"

"You sound sincere. (cough) Maybe it's the fever, but maybe you're not all bad after all." batarian said

Frankenstrike approached and kneeled beside the batarian.

"I'm going to take you to Mordin. He can help you. There is nothing to fear from him." Frankenstrike assured.

The Batarian ponders for a moment that nod his head in acceptance. Frankenstrike began to lift the batarian into his arms.

"You're going to see Doctor Mordin Solus?" Shepard asked.

"That's right, why?" the Samaritan asks

"I need to talk to both of you about the Collectors. You two and the other Samaritans are people who can help us stop them." Shepard explained.

Frankenstrike seemed to be in deep though about what she said, but the coughing of the batarian brought him out of his thoughts and he looked back at Shepard than to Miranda and Jacob who lowered their weapons some time ago. Shepard could see that Jacob was not hiding his amazement at the appearance of the Frankenstein-like alien. Miranda hid her emotions pretty good, but a slight widens of the eyes showed that she was taking the form in and analyzing him with great focus.

"I cleared out all the Blue Suns but the Vorcha could show up and take over at any time." Frankenstrike said as he looks at the batarian in his arms than back to Shepard and team. "And I can't fight with him in my arms."

"We can cover you as we make our way to the clinic." Shepard offered

Frankenstrike looked at her for a moment, then turned to the other direction and began walking.

"Well, let's get going Red." He said back to her.

Shepard mentally groaned at the nickname that he wasn't going to let go of anytime soon. She was even more irked when she saw that Jacob slightly smirked at the nickname.

The trio followed the hulking alien through the district, passing more piles of burning corpses along with burnt Blue Sun corpses that Frankenstrike no doubt killed earlier.

Shepard was by Frankenstrike left side when she glanced back to notice Miranda tried to hide her staring, but it was difficult for her not to be amazed by the fact that this one alien took on a whole district of mercenaries. She kept looking back and forth between the carnage and the Frankenstein alien.

"It not polite to stare Cerberus." the Samaritan said with a slightly annoyed tone.

"You don't show any signs that you were shot or injured, how were you able to dodge them." Miranda asked.

"I didn't, they shot me multiple times." Frankenstrike gave a deadpanned response.

"Do you heal fast, is that why you don't have any bruises or scars." Jacob asked.

"No the bullets just bounce off me." Frankenstrike answered.

Shepard's eyes widen, she only got a partial look at Frankenstrike fight, but it never showed him get shot. She understood the diamond guy being indestructible, but this Samaritan was just flesh, with some cybernetic woven into him, but mostly flesh. Unless there is more metal under his skin. The group walked down a set of stairs leading to a hall way with a wall that had a sigh with a red cross and the word "clinic" written. They approach the front entrance and are greeted by a human guard and two mechs.

"Samaritan, good to see you, we can use all the help we can get." the guard said

The guard looks at Shepard and her team with a look of suspicion.

"Its fine, there with me. " Frankenstrike assured.

The guard nods to the Samaritan and warns Shepard and her team not to cause trouble unless they want to deal with the mech.

Once inside they see the clinic is filled with patients treated or waiting to be treated. Frankenstrike walks up to the front desk with the batarian still in his arms.

"Samaritan welcome back, Mordin's inn the other room, you should go talk to him." one of the clerks said.

Frankenstrike nodded and lead Shepard and her team further into the clinic on the left until they came to a medical room on their right. An orange salarian in a white suit with red highlights and is missing a right horn appendage. He is currently discussing treatment plans with one of his assistants regarding treatment for a turian on his operating table. He turns around and acknowledges Frankenstrike.

"Ah Frankenstrike! Good to see you. And good timing. Vorcha starting to force their way into the area. Would deal with them myself but to occupied with cure for plague. (he looks at batarian in his arms) Ah, another survivor, lets see (scan with omni-tool than injects a serum into the batarian) There. Should recover later. Place him on the gurney in the corner."

"Thanks doc." Frankenstrike said.

Shepard had a little trouble keeping up with the faced-talking nature of the salarian but managed to follow. Apparently Frankenstrike was used to this kind of conversation as he just walked to one corner of the room with a gurney and placed the batarian there.

"Professor Mordin Solus?" Shepard asked

That got his attention as the doctor approached Shepard and her team and scanned them. Frankenstrike stood by the doctor's left side as if he was protecting him from Shepard. Guess he is still suspicious of Shepard. Probably wants to hear the rest of Shepard's reason for finding them.

" Hm, don't recognize you from area. Too well armed to be refugees. No mercenary uniform. Quarantine still in effect. Here for something else? Vorcha? Crew to clean the out? Unlikely, Vorcha a symptom, not a cause. The plague? Investigating possible uses as bioweapon?" Mordin went on.

Shepard was starting to get impatient, but remained silent as she didn't want to get off to a bad start with the doctor. She looked at Frankenstrike who looked unphased back how fast the salarian talked and seemed to be following him. Guess he has gotten use to talking to Mordin or listening to him at least. She could tell that he found Shepard's bafflement at the doctor humorous. Mordin frowns as he goes on a tangent as he analyses Shepard and her team's appearance while typing at a data terminal.

"No, no, no. Too many guns not enough data equipment. Soldiers, not scientists. Yes, yes. Hired guns? Maybe, looking for someone? Yes, Yes, but who-"

Shepard decided she should cut in, but she managed to sound calm and gentle as she interrupted him.

"Relax Mordin. I'm Commander Shepard and I came here to find you and the Samaritans."

Frankenstrike turns his attention to her.

"I'm on a critical mission and I need your help." Shepard said.

Mordin takes in what she said and ponders as he continues to type into terminal.

"Mission? What mission? No, no, no. Too busy. Clinic understaffed. Plague spreading too fast. Who sent you?"

She stops to think how to explain this. She can see Frankenstrike narrow his eyes as he waits for her answer as well. She looks at Miranda and Jacob. Miranda's look tells her that whatever Shepard tells him is up to the Commander.

"…It's a covert and privately funded human group." Shepard vaguely answered.

Frankenstrike did not look impressed with that answer.

Mordin jumps back to his feet and looks back up at Shepard

"Related to plague? (Paces as he activates his omni-tool) Doesn't affect humans. Human centric interests? Few human groups would know me. Equipment suggest military origin. (He worked on a medical device) Not Alliance standard…"

He looks from Shepard to her teammates. Shepard can see Frankenstrike smirk and wonders why. Then it hits her, and she mentally groans.

"Also, companions wear Cerberus logo." Mordin pointed out.

Frankenstrike bursts out laughing as Mordin notices the obvious. Everyone in the room looks at the group with curiously as they see the behemoth laugh. Shepard rolls her eyes and looks back to her teammates. Jacob rubs the back of his head with a sheepish look. Miranda covers her logo, subtly trying not to look guilty. Something told Shepard that Miranda was not surprised that Mordin knew about their logo, even though it was classified to the public.

"_We should really get rid of the Cerberus logos on the ship, just being affiliated with them is bad enough, I don't want to advertise it._" Shepard thought.

The Samaritan calms down from his laughing fit as Mordin closes his eyes and inhales deeply than exhale and looks at Shepard.

"Cerberus sent you." Mordin says as he narrow his eyes with a stern look.

"Your very well informed." Shepard said in a neutral tone "How did a salarian scientist hear about Cerberus?" she asked.

Mordin gets up from machine he was working on. "Crossed paths on occasion. Thought they only worked with humans? Why request salarian and Samaritan aid?" he asks.

"The Collectors are kidnapping entire human populations. We're gonna find out why and stop them." Shepard explained.

Frankenstrike clenched his fists as she said collectors. Mordin crosses his arms and brings his left arm to his chin with his omni-tool still on.

"Collectors?" Mordin mutters, then looks at Frankenstrike. "Samaritans had confrontation with collector caught in human trafficking a month ago. Did they not?" Mordin asked the behemoth, who nodes.

"Caught them rounding up street kids, most of them under ten years old." Frankenstrike growled.

Shepard blood boiled at hearing kids were involved.

"Collectors? Interesting." Mordin pondered "Plague hitting the slums is engineered. Collectors is one of few groups with technology to design it. (He looks at Shepard) Our goals may be similar. (Goes to computer terminal) But must stop plague first. Already have a cure. Need to distribute it at environmental control center. Vorcha guarding it. Need to kill them. (Looks at Frankenstrike) Could use other Samaritans. Need one to protect the cure and administer while others take care of the vorcha. Swampfire, Big Chill and Diamondhead would be suitable for this objective. Are they available?"

"(grunts the sighs" I lost contact with the others, our communications have been experiencing some..._technical difficulties_, so we haven't been able to talk to each other on the streets." Frankenstrike revealed.

Shepard wonders why the other Samaritans haven't come here concerned for their teammate if they haven't heard from him by now?

"(Hums) Problematic." Mordin states "No doubt you could make it. But too much risk to cure. Will need outside assistance."

Mordin and Frankenstrike turn to Shepard and her team. She gives them an assured look.

"We can help the big guy deal with the vorcha." Shepard assured.

The Samaritan was about to speak when the sound of ventilation systems shutting down got everyone's attention.

"What now?" Frankenstrike growled in annoyance.

Mordin types into his omni-tool before speaking. "Vorcha have shut down environmental systems. Trying to kill everyone! Need to get power back on before district suffocates. (Hands Shepard a metal case) Here take plague (hands Shepard a weapon) Also in good faith, weapon from dead Blue Sun's mercs. May come in handy against vorcha. (He looks to the Samaritan) Frankenstrike you know the way to ventilation systems. You can fight off the vorcha while Shepard keeps the case secure and distributes cure into ventilation systems."

Frankenstrike nods that turns to Shepard

"Well Red, I guess you'll get to prove you are who you say you are." Frankenstrike says.

Shepard wanted to retort to the nickname but Mordin interrupted.

"One more thing. Daniel, one of my assistants. Went into vorcha territory. Looking for victim (breathes, looks at Shepard and the Samaritan with concerned look) Hasn't come back."

"Don't worry, if we see him, we'll make sure he gets back safe." Frankenstrike assured.

"Thank you, told him not to go, but he's smart. Bright future…I hope." Mordin repleid.

Frankenstrike looks at Shepard

"I'll take point since I'm the most durable, you stay behind me with the cure, while you team covers the rear." He stated.

Shepard was normally the one giving orders, but she could respect how the man thought about priorities and apparently knew how to plan out defensive positions.

Shepard nods to Frankenstrike and turns to Mordin "We'll get it done." she assures.

"Yes, good. Restore power. Release cure." Morin beckoned

Shepard turns to Miranda and Jacob

"Let's go."

* * *

Frankenstrike: Quarantine Zone

Frankenstrike lead the supposedly-Shepard and her team down the corridor hall of the district as they descended further into the quarantine zone. Frankenstrike knew that the vorcha were stupid and insane but he didn't think they were this insane. But they were also too stupid to come up with something like this. The Transylian originally suspected it was Cerberus, but why send in a team to help if it was them? Unless it's an elaborate trap to catch him, but again that seem too elaborate. Mordin did share an opinion with the Samaritan before he left. The Collectors could have arranged with the vorcha to help spread the virus and the vorcha get the turf while they get results for whatever they were trying to accomplish with the plague.

Back on the topic of Shepard. While the Samaritan did admit that she looked a lot like the holo-vids, but a woman coming back from the dead, that can't be possible. And that's saying something coming from a being that's probably the biggest enigma to these people. However, he put aside those thought as they ascended a flight of stairs and he began to hear people talking. Vorcha.

"Heads up, we got company." The Samaritan whispers

Shepard acknowledge and signaled her team to take cover by the entrance on the left as they made it to the top of the stairs. Frankenstrike and Shepard were on the left side and Jacob and Miranda were on the right. The Transylian peaked and could spot four vorcha near another entrance, at least they were the only ones in plain sight, there could be others around the corner or behind the next door.

"Hey, how good's your aim." Shepard asked Frankenstrike.

He looked at her curiously but than saw what she saw, the vorcha on the right had a flamethrower pack and he was facing away with the pack exposed. Frankenstrike smirked and that all the answer she needed. She signaled her team and then held up three fingers. Then two. Then one.

Frankenstrike came out of cover and fires a bolt of lightning at the vorcha with the pack and it was a direct hit to the fuel pack as it ignited and engulfed the unsuspecting vorcha and his surprised comrade and they both died screaming and burning to death. The two near the door were drawn to the commotion but Shepard and Jacob took shots. Shepard's got the one on the left and Jacob hit the one on the right. Two more came from the door but Miranda grabbed one with her biotics and threw him into his comrade and they both slammed into the door, denting it. Bones crunching were heard as they hit and fell dead to the ground.

"Nice." Frankenstrike commented.

"You didn't do too bad yourself." Miranda said with a slight smile.

"Let's move up." Shepard ordered.

As they headed to the next door (the one they dented). It opened and a Blood Pack krogan came charging in and ran into Frankenstrike, who grabbed the krogan in ahead lock as he was pushed further away from Shepard's team who were engaging with four vorcha that were behind cover at the top of a flight of stairs.

Frankenstrike struggled to keep the krogan, who used his right arm to punch the Samaritan in the back while using the left to struggle out of the headlock. Eventually the krogan managed to break the headlock and throw Frankenstrike across the room. The Samaritan used his abilities to magnetize his feet and he stuck to the wall he was thrown into. The Samaritan than pushed himself off the wall and was thrusted in the krogan's direction who was attempting to charge the flying Samaritan. Frankenstrike charged is his right hand with electricity, as the krogan got closer time slowed down. Frankenstrike extended his right hand and it hit the krogan in the plate on his head. Combined with the momentum from being lunged from the wall the krogan head was shattered and was sent flying through the wall and creating a krogan sized hole in the wall.

Frankenstrike made his way back to the group to see the fight was taking place on a larger flight of stairs. There were two vorcha left. He saw Shepard power up her biotics and her body was surrounded by a blue energy field, she charged at the vorcha, and in an instant, she was on the one on the left and punched him in the chest and it sent the vorcha flying up the stair and landing dead on the top. She turned to the last on her rights and zoomed next to him and uppercut him into the ceiling where he splattered all over.

Frankenstrike would be lying if he said he wasn't amazed by the biotic display. It reminded him of another certain red-head who created energy fields with her hands, though he would never admit to her how cool her powers were. And she fought like a seasoned veteran, almost like Grand- He shook his head and snapped himself out of his nostalgia.

"_No, this isn't the time…and it doesn't do me good to think about people I'll never see again." _Frankenstrike mentally said to himself

Thinking how much this woman looked like and older version of _her_ didn't help either.

"Hey, you okay?" Shepard asked concerned as she approached him

He looked back at Shepard's team and schooled his facial expressions.

"Yeah. Good job Red. I didn't even have to step in." He complimented

"You're no slouch yourself." Shepard replied

Her team looks at the hole in the wall. Miranda was staring at Frankenstrike with fascination and interest.

"Incredible." Miranda muttered

"Definitely not a pushover." Jacob added

"We should keep moving. Time is running out." Shepard ordered.

The group continued up the stairs and trek the corridor until hearing voice coming from behind a closed door on their left. The door opened and Frankenstrike spotted Daniel surrounded by three batarians. The leader had Daniel by the neck of his shirt as the human tried to reason with them.

"Please, I'm telling you the truth, I work for Mordin at the clinic. I came here to-"

The leader pointed a gun in Daniels face as he brought his face closer to his.

"We know you spreading the plague virus. We saw the vials in your bag." the leader said menacingly.

"No, those vials contain the cure. Please, you have to believe me." Daniel pleaded

Frankenstrike and Shepard's team moved in.

The leader didn't believe him and began to threaten Daniel.

"Maybe we should cut off your fingers that sho- (second batarian noticed Frankenstrike)"

"Look out!" the second warned

The other two turned and were shocked by the presence of the Samaritan. The leader kept his gun on Daniel, who tried to stay calm and not provoke the leader to shoot him.

"Back off Samaritan, this is none of your concerns." the leader demanded.

Frankenstrike glared at him "It is when you point a gun at one of my friends now put it down." he said in a threatening tone.

"Not a chance Samaritan, I've heard what you do to your enemies, even the ones who surrender to you. (Frankenstrike could feel Red giving him a questioning look about that comment) Make a move and we kill your friend." the leader threatened.

Frankenstrike growled at him and began to charge his fists when Shepard interrupted.

"Nobody do anything they'll regret." Shepard interrupted.

"Shut up human! We're giving the orders here." the leader yelled.

"Drops your weapons or he (Daniel) dies." the second batarian threatened as he cocks his gun.

Daniel stays calm as he looks at Frankenstrike and Shepard. The Samaritan knew he was hoping for a non-violent solution. Sadly, Frankenstrike didn't see that happening. They've had this argument before. Daniel thinks the Samaritans can still help people without killing...but Frankenstrike no longer believed it. It either ends with the bad guys dying or the innocent dies.

"I know your scared of the plague, but this man (looks at Daniel) isn't to blame. If he was spreading the virus, why would he come into vorcha territory, their IMMUNE." Shepard pointed out reasonably.

The second batarian seems to have followed her logical reasoning. He turns to the leader.

"She's right, doesn't make any sense." the second said.

The leader looked like he was considering her words. He looked at Frankenstrike. The Samaritan knew he still didn't trust him not to attack after he released him. He looked at Shepard

"If we release the prisoner, can we go?" the leader asked

"You have my word, on it." Shepard reassured.

She looked at Frankenstrike. He looked at her than looked at the batarian, he closed his eyes and sighed as he powered down. He looked back up and nodded his head in confirmation. He saw Daniel smile with approval.

The leader put down his gun and turned to his men

"Let him go." the leader ordered.

His men lowered their weapons. The leader cautiously looked at Frankenstrike than to Shepard.

"You got what you wanted human. Are free to go?" the leader asked.

Frankenstrike looked at Shepard who raised her hand telling him to stand down. She than looked back at the leader and lowered her gun.

"We had a deal." Shepard stated. The leader looked surprised

"Human nobility. I didn't know such a thing existed." the leader said.

He glanced at the Samaritan before he led his men away from the area.

Frankenstrike approached Daniel

"Daniel you okay?" Frankenstrike asked concerned. Daniel exhales in relief before speaking.

"Frank, thank god you guys showed up I almost thought they would…you know. (He looked at Shepard) Thank you guys so much."

Shepard smiled and nodded.

"Did Mordin send you?" Daniel asked Frankenstrike, who nodded.

"Yeah, he was worried about you. And he could use your help at the clinic." Frankenstrike said

"Okay I'll head there now. Thanks for the save Frank, and I'm glad you didn't just kill them." Daniel said.

"I still not changing how I do things." Frankenstrike added "This is Omega. There is no law to deal with these guys."

"I know. But still, nice to see you try to do thing like you use to." Daniel said

Daniel walks out after nodding thanks to Shepard. She turns to Frankenstrike with an amused expression.

"Frank?" she asked with an amused tone

"_Oh, God dammit._" he thought in annoyance.

Frankenstrike grunted as she kept smiling.

"At least we have a shorter name to call you." Shepard stated.

"Yah, good for you RED." he said with fake enthusiasm

Shepard turns to her team (Jacob sharing her amused expression) and signaled for them to continue.

* * *

Author: I was just going to have Shepard's first name be Jane. But since the multiverse has infinite number of possibilities, that means there is one possibility where Ben meets a Shepard named Gwen. And it gives me an excuse to create more reactions from the characters when interacting.

This Alternate Ben's character will be like a mix of the Punisher and Spider-man. He kills when he's fighting on battlefields or other places like Omega. As for the Spider-man part of his character I explain later on, because I don't want to explain everything right away. His presence as in the story will have an impact, as well as some of his enemies who have entered this universe. The consequences are yet to be determined.

I know my fight scenes aren't good, but its the best I got. Feel free to criticize, anything helps make it better...hopefully.


	3. Chapter 3

Author: I'm finishing the Omega missions in this chapter. The Next will be split, the first talking part is on the Normandy and the second is taking place on the Citadel. I also apologize if the fight scenes are plain and unexciting for some of you, but I never said I was that good. Also I'm not good at writing the beginning of stories. I tend to think of stuff happening in the middle, than figure the ending, than work on the beginning. I don't know why it just happens. Sorry for any grammar mistakes, I looked over it a few times and did what I could but some always seem to escape me. And I'm usually eager to post these.

Answers to questions and comments from readers:

To foxtrot813: I thought about what you said about the Council so I'm going to do a little scene in the next chapter regarding that. Because now that I think about it, after six months they definitely would've sent someone to check out the stories of strange aliens on Omega. As for romance option for Ben...well you'll have to wait and find out because I can't really explain without giving away too much. You may be disappointed or may not care, you'll have to wait just a little bit longer.

To Alcides12: Thanks for trying to ease my worries about my fight scenes. I'll always be nervous about writing them, but I appreciate the words of encouragement. Yes Ben will have an Asari form, but its not going to be what you think it will be or what anyone else thinks. It will be...different to say the least. I can't really explain without giving away the rest of the story. But I will say this, I am going to do my best to make one hilarious scene involving that transformation.

Meaning of text styles:

Regular narration

"_Thoughts"_

_Emphasis _

(extra text in between scenes/Actions/Sounds/etc)

["Speaking through a communication device"]

I do not own **Mass Effect** or **Ben 10**. This is just for fun!

**Updated 5/7/2019**

* * *

**Chapter 3: Cure Plague. Rescue Archangel.**

**Shepard-Quarantine Zone**

Protecting a brief case with vital cure seems like an easy enough job…until crazy vorcha with goddamn rocket launchers show up and make you run behind cover. Two vorcha with the rockets are near giant fans on a balcony across the corridor from Shepard and her team, while 8 other vorcha are below firing at them whenever they get near the edge…. Thankfully they have a behemoth with them who can tank rockets and shoot electricity from his hands and blow them up in mid-air.

The Team is just outside the entrance to environmental control. Miranda is pinned down by the balcony overlooking the entrance while Jacob and Shepard are being a crate behind her. Frankenstrike is out in the open just hitting rockets left and right with his electric before they made it halfway. He misses one and it hits him point blank in the chest and he kneels for a moment grunting in pain but recovers quickly. He moved closer 'till he was near the crate Shepard was hiding behind and fired at the rocket vorcha on the left and sent him hurling into the fan. The fan was deactivated so no swirling gore, but the dents and blood splatter from hitting it hard was not a sight for those of a weak stomach

Shepard looks at him surprised at how he just took a rocket to the chest

"Jesus did that even hurt!" she shouts.

Frankenstrike looks at her with a sly smirk "It kind of tickles, actually." He replies humorously.

Shepard just looks at him, unable to tell if he was joking or not, she probably wouldn't believe it either way, because they didn't slow him down…And he doesn't even have a shield on!

Shepard looked from her cover and noticed that the last rocket vorcha on the top balcony was aiming for Miranda who just shot and killed two vorcha below (One shot to the head for both)

Shepard shouts "Miranda!" to warn the Cerberus agent.

Too late, by the time Miranda noticed, the vorcha fired. But this next part took Shepard by surprise. Before she or Jacob could react, Frankenstrike was already rushing towards Miranda.

Time slowed down as the Samaritan grabbed Miranda and turned his back toward the rocket with her engulfed in his embrace and protected her from the impact and explosion of the rocket. Shepard had to get behind cover again, as she looked again, she was relieved to see that Miranda was find as Frankenstrike released her from his embrace (she was slightly stunned and disoriented for a moment) and he turned toward the location of the rocket vorcha and aimed his right arm.

Time slowed again. Right as the vorcha fired again, Frankenstrike fired electricity and it reached the vorcha before the rocket made any distance. The electricity ignited the rocket and the vorcha was caught in the explosion and it screeched as it was incinerated.

Shepard and Jacobs mouth hanged open and Miranda widen her eyes in surprise but kept her facial expressions schooled. They eventually got over their shock and reached the end of the balcony to finish off the six vorcha. Jacob lifted one so high into the air with his biotics that he died the moment he impacted the ground, and Jacob shot a second leaving four left.

Shepard decided to get close and personal with the last four ducking near the entrance. Charging her biotics, she jumped from the balcony at high speeds and slammed into the vorcha in front and splattered him on the floor beneath her. The biotic shockwave launched the two closet vorcah back into the wall, one dead from impact and the other stunned momentarily. She turned her attention to the last standing vorcha who shot at her, but the bullets were negated by her biotic barrier, she waited for him to run out of ammo and he stood their clueless. She smirked as she lifted him with her biotics and lunged him toward herself. She then focused her biotics into her right arm and punched him point blank in the chest and into the stunned vorcha who was near the door when they both went splat and dented the doors.

She hears a "Wow…" from Jacob.

She looks back up and sees that Jacob and Frankenstrike are giving her a stunned look while Miranda is looking at the Samaritan with an analytical look. She's probably surprised since he made it clear that he hates Cerberus, but it seems that didn't stop him from helping her.

Its Shepard's turn to have a sly smirk "Anytime you guys are ready, we've got work to do!" She shouts to her team.

* * *

**Frankenstrike-Quarantine Zone**

Once again, this woman surprises Frankenstrike. He was not expecting her to charge in head first, but than again he's one to talk, but he doesn't need armor. It was almost unsettling to see that smirk after she obliterated the vorcha. The zombie pale skin and glowing orange scars on the left side of her face was unnerving as well. Of course, he is covered in stitches and looks like a living corpse, but she can be scary when she wants to be.

"Thank you for the assistance." Miranda says in a calm tone with a hint of gratitude.

He looked back at Miranda and gives her a nod. While he didn't trust the Cerberus agents as far as he can throw them, but he will admit their descent in a fight.

They meet up with Shepard near the entrance. Once they entered, they traveled through until they encountered a Blood Pack Krogan and two vorcha.

The vorcha began firing from cover while the Krogan charged

Frankenstrike was ready to take on the krogan until Shepard managed to beat him to it as she biotically charged into the krogan and managed to destroy his shield. While Shepard was slightly dazed, she managed to snap out of it and pulled out an inferno grenade and tossed it under the dazed krogan and she leaped back from it as it exploded. The Krogan was still alive but on fire, but the krogan's redundant nervous system allowed him to push on without pain and charged at Shepard. She finished is off with her rifle by firing into his face.

Frankenstrike was again left impressed but turned his attention to the vorcha who he makes quick work of with precise firing and shocking them both into the wall with bone crunching results. The group continued onward up another set of stairs.

Frankenstrike turns to the group "The environmental control should be nearby. The rest of the vorcha will most likely be there waiting for us." He looks at Shepard and continues "Stay close and I'll get you and the case to where you need to go."

Shepard nodes and turns to her team "Let's get this done."

All nodded as they came to the door. As it opened, they entered with Frankenstrike front and center. Shepard and Jacob on his left. Miranda on his right. And they were greeted by a pack of four angry vorcha.

One stepped up to address them while snarling. "You no come here! We shut down machines! Break Fans! Everyone choke and die. Then Collectors make us strong!"

"_Well, Mordin was right about the Collectors having a hand in this." _Frankenstrike thought.

Shepard glaring at vorcha "What do the collectors want?" Shepard asks while glaring at vorcha

"Doubt they know what their doing themselves." Frankenstrike mutters

Vorcha snarls angrily again "Collectors want Plague!"

"Shocking." Frankenstrike sarcastically mutters.

Lead Vorcha points at the team "(Snarl)You work for doctor! Turn on machines. Put cure in air! We kill you first (Snarl)"

Frankenstrike thinks "_That's my que."_ As he charged at the vorcha while the team stayed back to protect the cure. The three vorcha with rifles fired but as usual, the Samaritan tanked it and fire a shot of electricity at the one who spoke, ignited the grenades on his sash and he exploded taking the vorcha on his left with him. The third vorcha activated his flamethrower when the Samaritan got close enough to him and his fellow vorcha.

While he felt the flames spread all over his body, it did not hurt or damage him. The two vorcha idiotically stared at him as he grabbed the pyro and shocked him to the point his canisters exploded, engulfing Frankenstrike and the fourth vorcha in the explosion.

* * *

**Shepard**

Shepard watched the smoke dissipate and revealed the Samaritan unharmed by the flames and the explosion. He then signaled it was clear for now, and the team moved up. She looked at he vorcha he incinerated without even breaking a sweat. She never thought she meet anyone crazier than Wrex, who probably would have pulled similar crazy stunts in his place.

Shepard gets an incoming message from EDI on the comms ["Shepard I scanned the room. The central control system is in an alcove in the center of the back wall. You can inject the cure and reinitialize the system there."]

"Copy that EDI." She acknowledges the A.I.

Frankenstrike led her to the back of the room with heavy machinery and controls for the ventilation and environmental systems. Shepard approached the machinery in the center. She placed the case on the ground and opened it to reveal the tube containing the cure. She found the spot for insertion and administered the cure into the machine, which hummed to life as it activated.

"Excellent, the cure is in place. Now we just need to reactivate the fans." Miranda said

"There are two fan array controls on the east and west sides of the room. Doubt the vorcha will let us though." Frankenstrike explains.

Shepard smirks at the Samaritan "Well its good think we got a walking pile driver with us." She humorously remarks.

Frankenstrike smirks. But before he could reply. Jacob alerts the group "Heads up, we got company!"

Five more vorcha appear. Three on ground level. Two on a balcony over the exit with rocket launchers.

Shepard gets to cover behind a pillar on the left while Miranda and Jacob get behind cover on the right pillar. Frankenstrike is near Shepard firing at the rockets before they get close. They still needed to activate the east and west fan arrays to administer the cure. Time to divide and conquer.

"Miranda!" Shepard shouts and Miranda turns to her "You and Jacob clear out the west side!" She points to Frankenstrike "Me and the big guy will take care of the east!"

Nods all around as Shepard counts down to when they will break from cover. "Three, two, one…break!"

Everyone breaks from cover and lets the vorcha have it. Jacob obliterates the head of one of the ground vorcha near him with a shotgun and then uses his biotics to pull one of the rocket vorcha off the balcony and hurls him towards him and smacks him away with a biotic punch into the wall on his right. Miranda than grabs a ground vorcha with her own biotics and raises him into the air and slams him down hard into the metal floor, killing him. Both manage to slip away to the west area of the room and being fighting off the vorcha in that area.

Shepard powers up her biotic charge and zooms to the top balcony and charges into the rocket vorcha and smashes him into the fan behind him. She turns to watch Frankenstrike grab the last vorcha and slam him into the ground and the vorcha goes splat and the gore splatters Frankenstrike. The guys hardcore when he wants to be.

She turns to the west side to watch Miranda ignite a pyro's pack and kill two of his comrades as they make their way to the west fan array. Shepard jumps back down to join the Samaritan as they head for the east fan array.

Two rocket vorcha appear from the top balcony on the east side and fire two rockets at one. Frankenstrike reacts faster and gets in front and shots one midway towards them, and nails both as they explode. Both hear shouting and see a krogan charging. Frankenstrike runs toward him and they collide with each other and begin to wrestle. Shepard focuses on the rocket vorcha on the balcony and biotically charged to the one on the right and slams her right fist into his face and reducing it to a bloody pulp as he goes flying off the balcony. She turns and aims her rifle at the last vorcha as he is about to fire and she fires at him, scoring a perfect head shot as the vorcha falls to the ground.

She looks down and sees the Samaritan and krogan trying to push each other back. She sees Frankenstrike smirk as the coils on his back start to pump electricity and flows through his arms and electrocutes the krogan who is stunned enough for to throw him across the room, shorting out the krogan's shield. Shepard looks to the down at rocket launcher near the down vorcha and decide to help out. Grabbing the launcher, she aims at the krogan who regenerates from the damage and gets back up and stares down the Samaritan as he prepares to charge. He never saw Shepard aim the rocket launcher and she fired at the krogan who looked up too late and was hit in the head by the rocket, obliterating his head as his body was flung into the wall.

Frankenstrike looks up at Shepard "I had could have handled him you know!" he says with humor in his voice.

Shepard smirks "What? And let you have all the fun. You're not the only one who can go toe to toe with a krogan." She replies as she jumps down from the balcony to join the Samaritan as they continue to push to the fan array.

As they approached the door, they encountered four more vorcha (two regular and two pyros) The vorcha opened fired but Shepard raised her biotic barrier while Frankenstrike just tanked the bullets.

Frankenstrike looks to Shepard "There all yours, its not a krogan, but killing a couple of pyromaniacs can be fun too, right!?" He says with a smirk.

Shepard humorously shrugs "Eh, I'll take what I can get" she replies as she focuses her biotics and use it to push a pyro on his back, who winds up torching a fellow vorcha on his right, who begins to scream in pain. She than fires at the remaining pyro's canisters, causing it to explode and igniting the down pyro's canisters, engulfing the entire group in a burst of flames.

She looks back to the Samaritan and smiles "You know what? It was fun." She remarks.

Frankenstrike chuckles.

"Told you." He replies.

The doors to the fan array controls open and two vorcha are on the other side and step out with their guns ready. Shepard thought "_Too easy_" and decides for the up close and personal approach as she powered her biotics and charged at the vorcha before the Samaritan could react.

* * *

**Frankenstrike**

Frankenstrike was about to charge himself but Shepard beat him to it again and already punched the one on the right into the wall in the room behind them than she quickly pulled out her side arm and shot the other point blank in the head who quickly dropped dead. He's starting to believe that this is the savior of the citadel back from the dead. He may have to hear her out after all, besides, it's the least he could do after she went through all this just to help-

A Blood Pack krogan came out of nowhere from the control room and tackles Shepard, and then picked her up and slams her into the floor. Denting the metal under her and shorting out Shepard's shields.

Frankenstrike eyes widens. Time slowed down as he raises his hands and his coils pumped with electricity. The krogan raised his pistol as he aimed for the face of the dazed Commander while pinning her to the floor with his foot…

"GWEN!"

* * *

**Shepard**

Shepard will admit she got a little cocky, but to be fair, she has been on an operating table for two years. And finding out that she had Cerberus to thank for saving her life, made her very eager to hit something to vent the rage she's been feeling since waking up.

Normally she would have saw the krogan coming and be quicker to dodge. Sadly, that wasn't the case and the pain in her back of her head was telling her two things. One, wear a helmet more often. Two, stop rushing into shit like your eager to die all over again. Now she is looking at the blurry figure of the krogan pinning her to the floor and her mind is screaming for her body to move, or power up her biotics. Do something before the krogan shoots-

"GWEN!"

She could hear Frankenstrike shout her name as a bolt of electricity hit the krogan and stunned him enough to make him release his hold of the commander, and she felt the weight of the krogan's foot leave her chest. Next thing she knew, the Samaritan came charging in, roaring as he tackled the krogan to the ground and began pummeling him in the face.

Shepard started at the scene as her vision began to clear up and saw the Samaritan breaking though the krogan's mask and blood began to splatter as he continued to punch the krogan repeatedly with his right fist. Despite the scene taking place in front of her she, Shepard was more surprised when she heard the Samaritan shout her name, her first name. She wasn't surprised that he knew her first name, but it's just so rare to hear anyone call her by her first name, and she was used to everyone calling her either Commander, Commander Shepard or just Shepard. Only close friends call her Gwen, and even that's on rare occasions. Despite just meeting this bizarre alien, he didn't say her name like she was just a recent acquaintance. He called out her name in a way one would call out to an old friend. A question for later, she decided.

During the whole commotion she managed to bring up her omni-tool and started to apply medical gel to sped up her recovery. Eventually the Samaritan stopped, leaving nothing left of the krogan's face. He stood up and walked up to Shepard and looked at her with relief as he saw she was okay.

"Shepard are you okay?" He asks with obvious concern.

Shepard sat up and rubbed the back of her head as the pain slowly helped with the pain, making it a minor annoyance. Shepard

"I'm fine big guy, just a little sore, nothing a little med-gel can't handle" she reassured the Samaritan with a grateful smile. "Thanks for the help by the way" she adds.

Frankenstrike smiles a little.

"It not a problem, just doing my job." He responds

Shepard raises an eyebrow in confusion

"Your job?" She asks.

"Being a hero." He clarifies as he offers his hand to help her up.

She smiles again and gratefully accepts the hand and rises to her feet with his assistance. She stumbles a bit but eventually regains her composure and she walk alongside the Samaritan as they enter the control room.

"I'll activate the fans" Frankenstrike offered as he walked into the control room and began the process.

Shepard was leaning against the left side of the door and faced outside to watch out for any more vorcha that might be lurking around. She glanced back at the Samaritan as he worked and still couldn't help but be in awe of the power he displayed and thought of what it would be like to fight alongside the other Samaritans, but she was sure she would find out if she could convince them to join her on this mission.

"_Where the hell is his team during all of this?"_ she thought to herself. She figured this would be a situation that required more than one Samaritan. None of them were even helping Archangel and these guys are supposed to be allies with the turian vigilante. The plague and one-man war would be done in an instant if they all just showed up and helped. He said that their comms was having problems, but that couldn't just be it, he was their teammate, they must be concerned about him if they haven't heard from him by now, at least one of them could have showed up.

["Shepard you okay"] Jacobs voice came over the comm with concern in his voice ["EDI said you were hurt, and we could hear the big guy yelling your name. "]

["I was altered by your armor that your shields were deactivated and that you had sustained injuries in the areas of you lower cranial, upper back and shoulder blades."] EDI said in her emotionless tone. ["Current scans reveal your injuries are now subsiding and are in process of recovery"] She added.

Shepard was pulled out her thoughts as she responded, "I'm alright, our Samaritan friend took care of things and is about to active the fans in a minute." She rubs the back of her head as the pain is still fading "What's your status with the west array?" she asks.

["We ran into a couple vorcha, but we managed to take them all out. Miranda's about to turn on the fans on our end."] Jacob reports.

The fans began to come to life in that moment

["All systems are a go Commander"] Miranda responds from the comm ["The cure should be dispersed throughout the district in a matter of moments and prevent future fatalities from the plague. Now we just have to go talk with Doctor Mordin and get him and Samaritans on board with the mission."]

"Copy that Miranda" Shepard speaks up. "Meet back at the entrance and will be on our way."

["Copy"] ["Copy"] Miranda and Jacob both acknowledge.

"Thanks for helping out." She hears from the Samaritan as he approaches her from the controls "You didn't have to help these people, but you did despite the risks to yourself." They started to walk out of the control room and toward the entrance as he continues to speak "There's not a doubt in mind anymore. You're _the _Commander Shepard I've heard about." he said with a smile and admiration in his tone.

Shepard was glad that he didn't doubt who she was anymore, now she just hopes he is willing to join and put up being with what was technically a Cerberus crew, but the Samaritan's history with the collectors might be more than enough reasons to put aside what he feels about them, just like her. They made to the exit where Miranda and Jacob were waiting for them and Shepard decided now was goes as any time to ask-

["Shepard its Zaeed, the mercs are planning one big push against Archangel, if you want to get this guy on board you better get your ass down here fast."] Zaeed's transmissions interrupted before Shepard could say anything.

"Shit" was all Shepard could say as she looked up to the team who just heard the message on their own comms. Only Frankenstrike was the only one who didn't hear the transmission.

"We need to move if we want to get to Archangel in time" Miranda spoke up.

Frankenstrike looked at them with confusion.

"Archangel, your trying to recruit him too?" He asked the team.

"Yeah and all the top mercenary groups have him surrounded right now." Jacob responded, "He doesn't have long."

Frankenstrike narrowed his eyes, clearly, he didn't like the sound of this.

"What about Sidonis and the others?" Frankenstrike asked.

Shepard didn't know how he would take this, she knew the Samaritans team up with the Archangel band. While she only saw the Samaritans with Archangel, she could assume that a few of them knew Archangels' men.

"They were ambushed by all the mercenary groups." Shepard answered as delicately as possible. "Only Archangel is left." Frankenstrike eyes widen with shock and anger as he processed the information. "We're planning to go there on ourselves, but now maybe you and your friends can help us save him."

His fist started to tighten but he eventually relaxed and activated his omni-tool. Shepard's lit up and she examined it seeing that Frankenstrike sent her a communication frequency.

"I'm going to get the others, I call you when Archangel is out of danger." Frankenstrike replied as he ran out through eh exit.

"Wait!" Shepard yell as she and her team ran out to stop him but all they saw was a green flash that blinded them momentarily. When Shepard looked back, the Samaritan was gone with no trace.

"What the hell?" Jacob said in confusion.

"What just happened?" Shepard asked.

"It's what the Illusive Man believes to be their form of transportation" Miranda answered with an intrigued tone.

"What, like teleportation?" Shepard asks

"Not exactly" Miranda Answers "Our theory is that they possess some sort of device that allows them to move faster than we can perceive. All we really know is that the green flash is an indication of the enhanced speed being activated."

"What now Commander?" Jacob asks.

There wasn't much they could do but go back to the clinic and wait for the Samaritans to contact them with news about Archangel.

Shepard sighs "Lets head back to the clinic and talk to Mordin." She answered "Hopefully the big guy will call back and hopefully he'll have Archangel with him and the other Samaritans.

* * *

**Narrator **

A black and blue blur is seen zooming past people throughout the streets of Omega as it makes its way to the now known hideout of Archangel.

The blur takes a turn into the ally.

The scene focuses on the wall of a building as the blur stops in the ally. The shadow on the wall kneels to the ground and the owner of the shadow grunts in discomfort. It appears to be in the shape of a humanoid velociraptor with a sharp cone shaped head.

(Quick raspy voice)" Ugh not now…" that was all the voice could say before the shadow began to morph as a sort of flash occurred, unlike the familiar green flash, this flash is a rapid white light, like a camera flash, creating a photo negative effect around the area, and you could see the figure change its shape.

The Shadow morphed into the form of a familiar diamond hero, that quickly morphed to a humanoid with moth wings, and then a giant humanoid with four arms before changing a rapid pace.

The scenes change to the entrance into the ally as the flash continues. It eventually stops and the area becomes calm again.

"Aw man…" the new unknown voice groaned in annoyance.

* * *

**Shepard- Mordin's Clinic**

Mordin was on his terminal when we approached him in the clinic with a grateful looking Daniel standing beside him

"Environmental systems engaged." Mordin speaks. "Airborne viral levels dropping. Patients improving. Vorcha retreating. Well done Shepard. Thank you." He turns away from his terminal to face them with a pleased look of his face but noticed someone was missing. "Frankenstrike not with you?" before Shepard could respond "Ah, called away on another emergency I presume? Will thank him later then. Again, thank you for your assistance commander."

It was still hard to follow his fast speech, but Shepard was starting to get use to it.

"And thank you from me as well" Daniel chimes in, while nervously rubbing his fingers (probably a nervous tick). "Those batarians would have killed me. I'm was glad that you kept your word and didn't just let Frank kill them after they let me go."

Shepard almost snickered at the shortening of the Samaritans name, but kept her neural tone.

"I made a promise to spare them if they let you go. I honor my promises." Shepard gives the young man a smile "Even if that means facing down a behemoth who tries to break it."

Daniel returns the smile with a nod.

"Merciful of you." Mordin replies. "Risky. Would have let Samaritan kill them. Would have helped him kill them myself."

Daniel stares at him in surprise at the claim, despite the many times Mordin as shown brutality with the mercenaries that threaten his clinic and the people in it.

"Professor how can you say that." Daniel argues. "You're a doctor, you believe in helping people. Like the Samaritans."

"Lots of ways to help people." Mordin counter argues as he looks at his assistant "Sometimes heal patients. Sometimes execute dangerous people. Either way helps. Samaritans understand this. Kill dangerous people that threaten the innocent. Samaritans value innocent lives over dangerous lives. What I do is no different."

Daniel has a disappointed look. Shepard remembered how he said the Samaritans started off with leaving Omega criminals alive. Then they gradually accepted killing them, the longer they stayed on Omega. While the commander respects the young man's ideologies, she agreed with the doctor. Sometimes you must kill to save the innocent. Shepard had to learn that the hard way…

"Go check on the patients" the salarian doctor said to his assistant. "Lots of work to do. Think about what I said."

Daniel sighs and walks past Shepard with a nod of gratitude, which she responded with her own nod and a smile.

"Good kid. Bit naïve." Mordin says but still smiles. "He'll learn. Letting him take over the clinic. Should be able to handle it now that vorcha are gone."

"We cured the plague, are you ready to help stop the collectors?" Shepard asked the doctor, hoping he'll say yes.

"Yes" came the doctors reply "Unexpected to be working with Cerberus. Many surprises." He as he left the room to attend to other matter before he left.

Before anyone could say anything else. Shepard's omni-tool chimed to life and revealed she had a call from Frankenstrike communication frequency. When she opened the frequency for all to hear and she was greeted by a voice electronically hidden.

["Hello Commander Shepard, Frankenstrike spoke good things about you. I hope he is right about you."] Said the distorted voice.

"What the hell?" Jacob spoke.

Exactly what Shepard was thinking, why wasn't Frankenstrike the one calling?

"Who is this, and where the hell is Frankenstrike?" Shepard asked, not liking how this feels one bit.

The voice didn't respond at first, but after a few seconds

["…you can call me Magister. I'm the leader of the Samaritans."]

(A/N: Magister is a rank in the Plumber organization. Max Tennyson's rank in the plumbers is Magister, so I figured this would work as the name for the mysterious _leader_ of _team _Samaritan.)

Shepard raised an eyebrow and then looked between Jacob and Miranda.

"We suspected that one of the Samaritans was acting as a leader for the group." Miranda stated, "But they're never seen together or even communicating with each other, making it difficult to determine who's in charge."

"Could it be someone we never seen before?" Jacob offers

"Why isn't Frankenstrike the one calling?" Shepard asks again, she didn't believe it was Frankenstrike. Why would he call with his voice in disguise? If the leader of the Samaritans is a secret, why have him call? Why not let the Samaritan she knows call and keep the leader a secret? Something is not adding up.

[" …Frankenstrike is in disposed at the moment, he sustained serous injuries after his fight with the Suns and the vorcha."]

Shepard was not buying this

"He seemed fine when he left. Hell, I've seen him get hit by rockets and he got back up after being stunned for a second." Shepard pointed out, hoping to get this guy to reveal the truth.

A few more seconds of silence, as if the leader was contemplating is answer.

["…We may seem invincible to the rest of you, but even Samaritans have their limits, we can get hurt too…and even die."]

Shepard still couldn't believe that the Samaritan just suddenly fell over the moment he left Shepard's team, she needed to get straight answers from this guy.

"That's not good enough." Shepard replied. "What exactly happened to-"

["We do not have time to argue!"] Magister interrupted, and he started to raise his voice with irritation ["Archangel is about to be overwhelmed by every fucking mercenary on the station, and most of our heavy hitters are in no condition to save him!"]

Shepard was not fazed by him raising his voice, she had dealt with worse. But she noted how Magister spoke about Archangel. It didn't sound like how you talk about a work associate. He sounded like someone who was concerned for a friend.

["Archangel needs you help Commander…_We _need your help."] He said with an almost pleading tone.

Shepard looked at her teammates and saw that they were engrossed in the conversation and now awaiting Shepard's word on what they would do about it…

"_This guy has a lot of questions to answer when this is over_" she thought as she sighed.

She decided to play along for now, until they get Archangel.

"Alright, we'll help but I expect you to give me straight answers when this is over. No more bullshit." Shepard let that sink. He didn't respond with a yes or no, but she knew he got the message. "What's the situation? How many Samaritans are still standing?" She asked still not believing most of them are too hurt to fight.

["…Including Frankenstrike…Diamondhead, Four Arms, Feedback and Big Chill are also down…"]

"_Shit_" Shepard thought. She remembered those guys for the videos. They could have gotten Archangel out of their no problem. What the hell happened that could've hurt those guys?

["Swampfire, and Kickin Hawk are in the area on standby, but they can't get through without alerting the mercenaries and they can't get Archangel out without risking the chance of him getting killed in a storm of bullets. Most of the mercs are armed with heavy weaponry. It very likely they are expecting us to try and save him."]

She wanted to ask more about this Magister. Was he really an eighth Samaritan that's never been seen before? He didn't talk like he was one of the seven. If so, then why isn't he out in the field if the situation is that bad? Maybe it was Swampfire or Kickin Hawk since they were the only ones still active. Or it could be one of the injured working from a secret location. However, there wasn't much time for these questions. She would save them for later.

"There's a recruiting station at Afterlife for freelance mercenaries to sign up for the job to take out Archangel" Shepard revealed. "We could sign up as freelancers to get close enough to help Archangel. Its not much but it's the best we got." She finished.

It was silent for a moment.

["…Its better than nothing."] came Magister's simple reply. He was probably willing to try anything to save his friend.

"We already have a man watching the mercs from the inside. You know him. Zaeed Missoni."

["Zaeed? He's there too?"] Magister sounded surprised about this. Didn't he say that two Samaritans were close by watching the scene? Wouldn't they have spotted him? It's not like Zaeed blends in with the crowed. Shepard was going to grill this guy for answers after they get Archangel.

["Alright that good. Zaeed's perfect for this."] Came the Magisters reply in a calmer tone. ["I'll have one of our Omega contacts meet you at Afterlife."]

"_One of the helpers?" _She knew that they relied on these guys for interacting with the residents of Omega for information, but she never saw any but the krogan fight in the videos.

"Alright who should I expect?" She asked.

["Your looking for a krogan named Berserk"]

Shepard almost laughed. A krogan with a name that could be used to describe the whole krogan people. She would just love to see Wrex's reaction to a krogan with that name. Was that even a krogan name? It could be a code name now that she though about it. Again, time for these questions later, focus on the mission now.

She looked to her team. She could just have Miranda and Jacob escort Mordin to the ship while she goes with Zaeed and this Berserk. But with most of the Samaritans benched, she needed to have all the help she can get with getting Archangel out. The two active Samaritans can hold their own in a fight, but they can't tank all those weapons and cover our escape with Archangel at the same time, unless they plan this perfectly when they arrive.

With Magister on the line she addressed him and the group before her.

"All right here's how we'll do this…"

* * *

**Shepard-Afterlife**

Shepard approached Afterlife alone. She had Miranda and Jacob escort Mordin to the Normandy, she didn't want to risk him in this after just getting him on board. He was planning to get on the seeker swarm analysis immediately. Miranda and Jacob would arrive later, while Shepard, Zaeed and Berserk get to Archangel, the Cerberus agents will hang back and be ready to cause havoc within the mercenary blockade that surround Archangel's hideout. The Samaritans would jump in and assist after we break our freelancer cover. She still couldn't help but feel the Samaritans were holding something back regarding viable information, but right now she had to take what she could get and be glad that whatever Frankenstrike said about her was able to convince the others to work with her.

Once she neared the entrance, she noticed a green-eyed krogan leaning against a wall near the entrance. He had orange-yellow skin, black armor with white highlights, and a green bandanna that covers the front of his head plating, a shotgun strapped to his back, a pistol on his left hip. Shepard knew from her conversations with Wrex that this krogan was considered young by krogan standards, a young adult at least.

She recognized him from the video of him and Patriarch and approached him (really did look like a younger version of the elder krogan. Could they be related?). He wasn't a Samaritan but the recordings of his fights with Blood Pack assassins showed that he was decent in a fight. But she would have expected no less from a member of the warrior race.

"Berserk?" she asked as she approached him.

He noticed her.

"Commander Shepard" he stated in a deep voice (A/N: Kevin Michael Richardson voice/Bulkhead voice from Transformers Prime), as he reached for his bandanna and lifted slightly so only Shepard could see.

As she expected, the green and black hourglass symbol was placed on his head plating. This assured her that he was a Samaritan helper without a doubt.

"The Samaritans tell you about the plan?" she asked the young krogan who re-covered his head platting.

"Yeah, we sign up as freelancers and meet up with Zaeed at Archangels hideout and do whatever we can to cause hell and get him out before shit hits the fan." He answered.

"And the Samaritans will be there to help us, right?" She asked, still feeling something in her gut telling her that there is more going on with these strange aliens that they're wiling to tell her.

Berserk looked at her for a moment as he seemed to be pondering what to say to her. She immediately picked up on how calm this guy was, almost Wrex-like calm. Most young krogan are eager to fight and charge head first in without regards for pretty much anything, but this one did not follow the normal behavior of young krogan. It felt like she was talking to a younger Wrex.

"…They'll be there…they won't step in until our cover is blown, but they'll help be there to back us up." He answered.

She had no choice accept that answer for the moment, but she would still confront the Samaritans when this is over. Berserk tuned to the direction of the entrance.

"Don't know about you, but my bloods boiling. Let's find something to kill, shall we?" He stated in a relaxed tone.

Shepard slightly snickered at how this guy could be Wrex's long-lost brother.

They entered the bar and Shepard noticed the krogan glancing occasionally at the second floor. She turned and noticed Aria eyeing them. She gave the duo a sly smirk as they made their way to the recruiting station. Shepard was dying to know what exactly the Queen of Omega had on the Samaritans and their helpers, but she needed to get them on her side first, and she need to meet this supposed leader.

As they were walking, Berserk's omni-tool lit up and he examined it. He gave an annoyed grunt as he turned to face the commander.

"There a problem?" She asked.

"…(grunting)Just need to take care of something really quick. It's just outside and it should only take a second." He answered

He kept gazing up where Aria, who was facing away from them this time, but Shepard could tell that she knew where the duo was without looking. She figured that this had something to do with the Asari. She didn't want to delay the mission, but she didn't need to the risk of Aria causing complications if this involved her.

"(sign) Alright but let's be quick, there isn't much time." She stated.

"(grunt) Right." He replied and headed for a door near the bar with the commander right beside him.

Once they reach the lower ramp for the door, it opened and were greeted with the sight of two Blood Pack krogan approaching.

"This will be quick. Get Ready" Berserk said to Shepard before he approached the other krogan.

Shepard hanged back and waited to see how this all played out.

"Out of our way kid." The Blood Pack krogan said menacingly as he waved his gun in a manner to tell the younger krogan to move.

"You here for Patriarch?" Berserk asked, not at all fazed by the gun in his face.

Shepard recalled the video of Berserk talking to Patriarch and how the krogan was being targeted by the Blood Pack. Berserk offered to be his krantt and fight for his honor.

"What if we are?" said the assassin. Sounds like he's not at all bright if he doesn't realize he is talking to Patriarch's krantt by now. "(pointing at Berserk in a threatening manner) You gonna something abo- "

He never got to finish because Berserk headbutted the assassin and tackled the stunned krogan to the ground. The other assassin was about to fire at Berserk, but Shepard pulled out her pistol and fired at the second. The assassin turned to Shepard and ignited his weapon as a stream of fire shot at the commander who dodged to her left and sent a biotic push at the krogan, knocking him into the wall and shorting out his shields. She charged at him with biotic punch that broke through his mask and smashed into his face. She than aimed her pistol at his faced and emptied the clip into him. He dropped dead to the ground.

Shepard her the sounds of bones breaking as she turned to see Berserk pummeling the assassins face with his hands, and splattering blood all over himself. Shepard had a sense of déjà vu, as his position over the assassin was like how Frankenstrike tackled the krogan that pinned her to a wall and pummeled his face. It was strange to see it again from Berserk with the exact manner and motions of punching. Almost like he and the Samaritan practiced the same kind of fighting.

She broke from her musing as Berserk stood up and approached her away from the body, whose face was nothing but a bloody mess. He looked at the assassin Shepard killed and nodded in approval of her kill.

"Not bad." Came his short remark. Shepard smirked and nodded

"If we're done having fun, we need to get the mission done." She replied

Berserk grunted and nodded as she led the way to the recruiting station. They approached the entrance and the merc recruiter waiting outside the door.

"We heard your recruiting?" she asked the batarian merc.

The Blue Sun batarian made a "Hmph" noise as he looked at Shepard and Berserk for moment before he pointed to the door.

"Why don't you step inside" he said as he allowed them to go talk to his boss.

The duo made their way inside to find another Blue Sun mercenary at a holographic terminal, talking to a man in white combat armor.

"You'll get paid when the job's done, just like everyone else" the Blue Sun said to the freelancer, who left afterwards. "Who's next?" he asked as Shepard and Berserk approached his terminal as the freelancer passed them.

The mercenary gave amused and almost pervy look at Shepard. She was tempted to gauge his eyes out at that moment.

"Well aren't you sweet" he said with a condescending tone. "(went back to typing in his terminal) You're in the wrong place honey. Strippers quarters are that way" he said motioning his head back to the door as he continued typing.

Shepard glared at the batarian. "_You did not just call me HONEY" _she thought. As much as she wanted to deck this guy in the face for that stripper comment, she needed to keep up the freelancer act. But that doesn't mean she had to take that quietly. So, she pulled out her pistol and aimed it at the batarian.

"Show me yours, tough guy." She said in a threating tone as she aimed her gun. "I bet mines bigger."

She could see Berserk out of the corner of her left eye with his arms crossed and smirking, apparently amused by the scene in front of him.

"Impressive" he said as she lowered the gun from his head, and he looked at her more seriously "So you're here to fight than?"

"Sure" Shepard replied as she put away her weapon "If this is the place to go after Archangel?"

"This is the place" he said as he looked at Berserk who was still beside Shepard on her left. "You with her?" He asked the krogan.

"She said this job involved killing a tough turian" He answered with what Shepard could tell was a faux tone of krogan blood lust, "He is tough?"

"You can say that…" the batarian answered as he started typing again. "Standard fee is 500 credits each, you get paid when the jobs done. If you die, your friends don't collect your share. (Shepard and Berserk share a look at the casualness of that remark) You'll need your own weapons and armor. (he looks at them both) Looks like you got that covered. (He stops typing as he looks back at them) And no, this does not make you a member of the Blue Suns, Eclipse or the Blood Pack. (he goes back typing) You are a freelancer period. Any questions?" he asks as he finishes speaking.

"Seems like a lot of trouble for just one guy." Shepard remarks.

"He had a whole team, but we've dealt with them." (Shepard could see from the corner of her eye that Berserk slightly tensed at the mention of Archangels team) "Now he's just one guy. But he's got the advantage."

"And that is?" Berserk asks

"Its his base of operations and he knows we're coming. He's planned for and attack like this. Lost a lot of men trying to get to him already."

"It's gonna be tough to get to him" Berserk comments with his arms crossed. Clearly, he doubts the mercenaries can take out Archangel.

"Like chasing a vorcha out of the sewer pipes." The Blue Sun commented.

Berserk snorted at the comment, and Shepard could her him mutter: "Been there, done that..."

"But that's why we're recruiting. If we just keep throwing fighters at him, we'll get him eventually." The mercenary finished.

"Where's the attack taking place?" Shepard asks

"Archangels base of operations" The Blue Sun says as he checks his own gun and continues "He's been hiding right under our noses. I can't exactly tell you where your going, but we'll get you there." He finished.

"Where do we go?" Berserk asks.

"Just head over to the transport depot just outside the club. One our boys will take you from there." He answers as he foes back to typing "Send in the next one" he orders the other Blue Suns outside.

Shepard and Berserk turn around to leave as the doors open. A young man enters the room. Light skinned with a yellow beanie. White sleeveless shirt with grey and black highlights and a yellow sleeveless jacket over his shirt. Green pants and black boots. He has a pistol strapped to his black belt on his right hip.

Has he passes by, Shepard can see Berserk has a look of surprise and familiarity with the kid. Almost like he knows him, but the kid clearly had no clue who he was as he walked past the duo.

"Hey, is this where I sign up?" the kid asked the merc and sounding almost eager.

Shepard looked the kid over and she could tell that he was as green as they come. He was going to get killed after the five minutes on the job. Less, since Shepard and the Samaritans will be raining on the mercs parade.

"You look a little young to be freelancing as a merc." Shepard commented.

"(grunt) The dumb ass wouldn't last a day" Berserk muttered.

The kid turns to confront the due. Not appreciating the comments.

"I'm old enough" kid says." I grew up on Omega. I know how to use a gun."

"Any brainless pyjak can hold a gun and shoot it. Doesn't make them a badass kid." Berserk said. Shepard can see that he knows the kid, but the kid doesn't know him.

Kid didn't take to kindly to that comment.

"I can handle myself" the kid says as he pulls out his pistol. "Besides, I just spent fifty credits on this pistol and I want to use it-"

Shepard was about to act but Berserk beat her to it and did what she intended to do. He grabbed the kids vest and brings him to his face with angry look

"Idiot! Don't be in such a hurry to die!" Berserk growled as he took the kids weapon and throws it into the ground hard, damaging it.

"HEY! WH-" the kid protested but the glare from the krogan silenced him, and Berserk released him and walked away, leaving the kid stunned by what just happened.

Truth be told Shepard was surprised that the krogan cared so much, not even Wrex would have bothered to do something that Shepard would usually do herself.

She looks at the kid "Trust me kid, he did you a favor, you'll thank him later." She said to the kid as she walked away for the kid who was looking down.

She caught up with Berserk as they both left the bar and walked I the direction of the depot.

"So, you know the kid?" Shepard asks. Clearly, he knew him, but it didn't make sense to her why he cares if the kid got himself killed or not when they apparently weren't even friends.

Berserk seems to ponder what to say and eventually grunts and sighs before answering.

"His name is Jonn Whitson" Berserk answered. "He's a friend of a friend of mine. And I promised I do something if I see him act like an idiot. Let's just leave it at that." He answers, not wanting to elaborate further.

Shepard decided that she wouldn't get any further with that question and decided to change the subject to something else.

"How did you meet the Samaritans?" She asked.

The krogan once again on a look of pondering before he answered

"I was in a bad place when they found me, I had no home, no clan, no purpose, just meaningless fighting. Usually that's more than enough for krogan who only care about satisfying their desire to fight, but not for me." He paused for a moment. He looked at Shepard who had a look of curiosity that asked for him to continue. "Four Arms saw something in me and asked if I wanted to help make a difference on Omega. I had no reason to say no, so I took him up on his offer. Now I wander around Omega and listen in for anything that would require a Samaritans aid. And occasionally I would step in and take care of something myself."

"Like with Patriarch" Shepard asked. Berserk nodded.

"He's one of the few krogan on Omega I respect. I stop by from time to time and listen to his stories. They're…inspiring to say the least."

"But what does Aria have to do with it. I've seen how she looked at you when you stepped into Afterlife." Shepard asked.

Berserk looked at her with a look that said he did not wish to talk about it but the look from Shepard said that she wanted something.

"(grunt) She made us aware of the Blood Packs price on Patriarch's head and we have an agreement to look out for him." That was all he said on the matter and gave her the same look that said he was not going to elaborate any further.

"_I thought the Samaritans were vague_ _on details_" Shepard though as she softly signed. "So, what about the other helpers." Shepard asked, hoping she get more.

"Helpers?" he asked amusingly "That what you call us? (soft deep chuckle) Guess it fits. Well, I never really ask about them much. I don't even see them most of the time. We're mostly spread out throughout the station and providing information to the Samaritans. Better that no one ever catches us together. I assume there like me and they had no where to go until one of the Samaritans offered them a chance to make a difference." He finished.

Shepard wanted to ask more questions. Didn't they live at the Samaritans hideout? Wouldn't they have talked to each other? And how did they convince a freaking vorcha to become a helper?!

"There's the car" Berserk says before she could even ask another. Guess her questions can wait. They approached the Blue Sun batarian standing next to the red car. Shepard and Berserk approached the Sun.

"We're on the mission" Shepard stated to the batarian driver.

"I hope you're ready" The Blue Sun replied, "Archangels been annihilating you freelancers."

Berserk had a barely visible smirked. Shepard figured he was glad to hear his friend giving the merc hell.

"We're ready." Shepard said to the driver.

"Get in" the batarian said as he moved towards the driver side of the car and the duo got into the passenger seats. Shepard messaged Zaeed that they were on their way as the car took off.

* * *

**Shepard- Archangels Hideout/Merc Base**

The car eventually slows down and begins to land in the middle of the street that seems to have been outfitted to be a part of the mercs base operations as there were mercs, freelancers and supplies all over the area.

The car doors opened. Shepard and Berserk stepped out and were approached by another batarian blue sun. He eyed the duo with a somewhat impressed look.

"It's about time they sent me someone who looks like they can actually fight." The merc stated. "They tell you what we're up against" he asked the duo.

"The recruiter was a little vague" Shepard answered.

"We wouldn't get many hires if everyone knew the truth…"

"There with me Salkie, I can fill them in on the rest." The voice of Zaeed interrupted as the bounty hunter came down the steps of the streets and approached the group.

"Good. When you guys are ready, go talk to sergeant Cathka" Salkie replied as he walked off, leaving Zaeed and the duo to talk.

"Berserk, good to see you again, you crazy reptile." Zaeed greeted in a friendly manner

"Zaeed, it's been a while hasn't it?" Berserk asked.

"Heh, haven't seen you since that time we chased that pack of vorcha out of the sewer pipes." The bounty hunter amusingly mentioned.

"(Berserk snorted) Never going through that shit again. No pun intended…well maybe a little intended" Berserk replied. Shepard could tell these two could go on for a while if she didn't step in.

"I hate to interrupt the trip down memory lane, but we got a turian vigilante to save." Shepard interrupted despite how amusing the conversation was getting. The helper and the bounty hunter turned their attention to her, and they refocused. She turned to Zaeed "What do you got for us Zaeed?" she asked hoping he got some information on the situation.

"Archangel is holding up in a building at the end of the boulevard. He collapsed all the underground passageways and sealed the doors to the lower levels. They have people trying to dig through, but the bosses are getting impatient. Now the only way in or out is a narrow bridge that is so bloody exposed, its become a killing ground filled with the bodies of any poor saps who thought they could outrun the turians bullets." Zaeed looked at Berserk and smirked in amusement. "He might even be crazier than you and the Samaritans, the son of a bitch managed to ground their gunship with a single bloody shot."

"That's Archangel for you." Berserk said with glee as he heard Zaeed speak of Archangels carnage against the mercs.

"They used a gunship for one guy?" Shepard asked, surprised by all the trouble the mercs are going through to kill a single turian.

"They were probably expecting the Samaritans to come in and help by now" Zaeed guessed as he looked back at Berserk "Speaking of, where they hell are those guys?"

"There around, waiting for us to give the signal" Berserk replied, and not giving any clear details as usual.

"So, anyone made it across the bridge?" Shepard asked Zaeed.

"They got a few over to get close enough that they could start breaking into his hideout, but they need a distraction to keep Archangel occupied.

"I'm guessing that where we _freelancers_ come in." She asked already seeing where this is going.

"Yep" Zaeed replied. "They want us to run straight across the damn bridge and keep his attention while their guys break in. (Snorts in disapproval) Its god damn suicide is what it is." Zaeed explains.

["Shepard, I've scanned the area."] EDI spoke through the comms ["But I am unable to plot any other paths to Archangel"]

"Guess we're going with the mercs." Shepard stated in annoyance.

"Archangel knows me." Berserk chimed in." He won't fire when he sees me."

"Well at least we have that going for us." Shepard replied.

"Getting in will be easy." Berserk spoke. "The bitch will be getting out without getting killed."

"Especially with most of the Samaritans out of commission." Shepard said as she sighed

"Our odd aren't looking to good right now, and I've done some wild shit in my time." Zaeed said.

["The heavy mechs and gunship possess considerable fire power."] EDI added. ["Weakening them before leaving will improve your chances."]

That wasn't a bad idea. It would make this mission easier if they took out the big guns.

"Copy that EDI, thanks" Shepard said before turning to her team. "All right, let's go have some fun with the mercs toys before we get started." She said with a mischievous smile.

Zaeed and Berserk nodded with their own diabolical smiles. Clearly, they liked where this was going.

* * *

**Berserk-Archangels hideout/Merc Base/Eclipses section**

Berserk and Zaeed followed the Commander into the Eclipse section of the Merc base. Shepard was currently talking to a red-skinned salarian with white face markings, Jaroth, leader of Omega's Eclipse.

"Seems like this is personal for you" Shepard said to Jaroth.

"He raided one of my transports last month." He rounded angrily. "Killed two of my best operatives. One of them was my BROTHER, so yeah I find it very damn personal." He continued with fury in his eyes. "I would have killed him already if that damn Samaritan, Feedback, hadn't showed up and helped him get away."

"_Hehe._ _Bet that pissed you off even more?"_ Berserk thought to himself amusingly.

"I'm surprised the Samaritans haven't showed up yet, given their alliance with Archangel, then we could have annihilated them along with Archangel and his pathetic ragtag team. (Berserk subtly glared at the salarian) No matter, once Archangel's corpse is feed to the vorcha, we'll go out hunting for them and their hideout as well." He finished with a hint of a sadistic tone.

Berserk wanted to kill him there and now but a glance from Shepard told him to keep his cool and not blow their cover just yet. Berserk grunted as he calmed himself while Shepard continued to talk to him. After finishing her conversation with the Eclipse leader, the trio began to subtly search around the area. Shepard found something on a table and signaled for Berserk and Zaeed to follow her out of the room to see what she found.

"Looks like this isn't the end of the merc groups little arrangement with each other." Shepard said as she showed the datapad she found.

Shepard came upon a message from Jaroth to Tarak about how they plan to team up with Garm and use their forces to hunt done the Samaritans and then take on Aria. Getting rid of the biggest threats to their control on Omega. Oh, Berserk knew that Aria was going to just love this. Maybe it would even get her to lay off with the blackmail, because Berserk was getting sick of being her unwilling bodyguard.

"I thought Tarak was acting crazy before, but this is too insane and suicidal even for him." Zaeed stated.

"You know Tarak." Shepard asked curiously.

"We go way back to the early days of the Blue Suns, another story for another time thought." Zaeed replied with a hint of bitterness at mentioning early times. Berserk knew this story as Zaeed told him before, and he knew it wasn't a good idea to get Zaeed talking about it unless they want him to break cover early and try slaughtering the Suns.

"Aria might wind up owning us a favor is we show this to her." Berserk added in, hoping that this would change the subject. And he hoped this information keep a grateful Aria from revealing the big secret about the Samaritans.

"I like the way you think Berserk" Shepard replied as she sent the message from her omni-tool to Aria. Then turn to Berserk and Zaeed. "Let's check out their mechs" Shepard added as they headed for a door that opened to reveal a deactivated standard mechs and one heavy mech.

"_Oh, the things I could do with this_…" Berserk musingly thought as he wished he currently had the right _skill set_ for turning this mech into the ultimate merc killer. He watched Shepard as she began to hack and reprogram the heavy mech.

"Almost done and… (sound of bypassing security.)there" Shepard stated with a satisfied sigh. "That should slow them down."

"Nice" Zaeed commented "Anyone who activates that thing will be blown the hell up. (Zaeed smirking) Friend or foe."

Berserk was impressed with her tech skills, "Not bad" he commented. She could give Archangel's tech guy a run for his money…Berserk had a look of sad nostalgia that turned to anger than back to neutral as Shepard turned around. He mourns for the others later, right now he needed to focus on Archangel, and he would avenge them by killing every merc here.

* * *

**Shepard-Archangel hideout/Merc Base/Blood Pack section**

Shepard and her team made their way into the Blood Pack section and were greeted by a krogan in red armor with skull markings on his shoulder pads, Garm, the Blood Pack leader. And a vorcha on his right snarling at the trio as they entered.

"You're in the wrong place freelancers." Came the reply of Garm.

"You the Blood Pack leader?" Shepard asked

"Names Garm. That's all you need to know." He said to Shepard but then he turned to Berserk who was standing beside Shepard on her right. Garm had a look of interest and disgust. "(To Berserk) Why are you following this human, young one?" he asked the younger krogan.

"Why not? Berserk asks as he looks at Shepard "She's the strongest warrior I've seen." the Samaritan helper answered. Shepard was a little surprised by the comment, since he only seen her take down one Blood Pack assassin and only heard what Frankenstrike told him.

"You should be learning from your own kind" the Blood Pack leader replied with a disapproving tone.

Berserk narrowed his eyes at the leader. Shepard had to wonder what goes through the mind of the atypical krogan helper.

"And what more could I learn from my _kind_ that I don't already know now?" Bersek asked.

"How to live and die without fear" the leader replied as he aimed his gun at the unsuspecting vorcha near him who turned around and his head was blasted off and landed on a table in the back of the room next to two vorcha, who were unfazed by the death of their fellow vorcha. Shepard couldn't help but think "_Hardcore"_ at the scene. "How to put that fear in the hearts of your enemies." Garm finished.

"Shepard does that and more, so I think I'm good where I am right now. But thanks for the advice" Berserk responded.

"If you say so, but there is a place among your own kind when you find out otherwise about this human." Garm said. Still had the disapproving tone and still tried to get Berserk to join.

Shepard noticed how Berserk talked like he was there when they fought the vorcha in the quarantine zone. This is the kind of praise the Samaritan gave her, but to here from someone who barley seen her fight. Maybe he's heard about Shepard before and was just impressed by what he heard? Questions for later as Garm turned his attention back to Shepard.

"I'm stuck here waiting till you freelancers are done playing war." Garm said to Shepard. "Ask you questions and go." He finished.

Shepard began to ask question about the plan of attack and about the Blood Pack and Garm answered. Than the topic changed to Archangel.

"…everybody loves us, and everybody hates us."

"I'm guessing Archangel and the Samaritans mostly just hates you." Shepard said and she could tell that mentioning the vigilantes annoyed the leader.

"Archangel's just an uptight asshole and the Samaritans are just a pack of asshole freakshows." Garm replied. "I don't really care what they think. But the turian and his freak friends are costing me men and making me work for my money." He than had a look of homicidal glee "I'll be the one to take Archangel out today and any Samaritans than are stupid enough to come help him…you watch. I'm the only one here who's fought with Archangel and a Samaritan." He finished.

"So, you've had some personal experience with the vigilantes?" Shepard asked, but she already knew from the videos that Garm fought against Four Arms once. Berserk looked like he wanted to tear apart the leader, but Shepard again gave him the look that said, 'Stand down' and he kept his cool afterwards.

"Archangel tried to take me down once." Garm answered "Waited till I was alone. Longest damn fight in my life, but I held him off till my men showed up. He wasn't so tough after that…" His face took on an annoyed look "Than that damned four armed Samaritan showed up and slaughtered most of my men and nearly killed me before he leaped out of the fight with Archangel. Damn bastard." He finished. Berserk had a look that said he was satisfied with the Blood Pack leader's annoyance. Shepard decide it was time to leave before Garm noticed Berserk's shit-eating grin.

"i should go." Came Shepard's usual statement when she wanted to end a conversation.

"'Bout time." Came the leaders reply before he looked at Berserk again, who thankfully returned to his neutral expression. "Think about what I said kid." He said to Berserk.

"Oh, I intend to, and thanks for the tip about fear" Berserk said with faux appreciation.

They left the room as one of the vorcha in the firefight with Archangel got sniped right in front of them. "_The guys a hell of a shot, almost like…"_ Shepard quickly refocused and returned to the objective. There was no way it was _him…_

* * *

**Berserk- Archangel's hideout/Merc Base/Blue Suns**

"Jentha! Get these freelancers scum out of here. I don't have time for this shit!" came the order from Tarak, Blue Suns leader, as soon as Berserk and Shepard stepped into the Blue Suns command center.

"Tarak!" Zaeed said as he stepped into the room, crossing his arms "What's eating you ass!?"

"Zaeed?" Tarak said confused and surprised. Than he realized that Zaeed was here with the duo "(pointing at Zaeed) Since when you work for so little?" he asked in disbelief.

"Since when are you a god damn mad man?" Zaeed responded.

"Its Archangel and those fucking Samaritans!". Tarak said as he started to get livid and almost sounded like he was going half-crazy and paranoid. "These freaks are gonna to kill me, almost did already."

"That bad huh?" Zaeed asked as he looked at Shepard than at Tarak. He sounded slightly surprised at how on edge the Suns leader sounded.

Berserk already knew why and he was happy to see the results of that little adventure with Archangel on the Blue Sun "(quietly mutters) Eat shit you little pyjak" he said to the Suns leader who didn't hear, but an amused look from Shepard told him she heard him.

"Jentha, talked to these guys. Answer whatever questions they have." Tarak ordered to a tanned skin redhead who nodded to his order. He turned back to Zaeed. "Good to see you. And who knows? Maybe you'll solve my problem for me" he finished with a slightly lighter tone.

"Anything's possible" Zaeed said with a sly smirk to Berserk and Shepard. Oh, they were going to have fun fucking their shit up.

"Good thing you know him." Jentha said to the trio as they approached her. "Tarak hates having to hire freelancers. He doesn't trust anyone outside of the Blue Suns."

"You don't say?" Zaeed sarcastically asked

Shepard began to ask the Blue Sun questions about the organization and how they operate on Omega until Archangel and the Samaritans came up.

"How did Archangel and the Samaritans get the Blue Suns so mad at them?" Shepard asked.

"They harass and hound us constantly" Jentha said sounding annoyed. Berserk had his shit-eating grin on as he continued to listen. "We worry that every job is a trap now. Tarak's had enough and I don't blame him." She said. Berserk can tell that it's not just Archangel and the Samaritans, Taraks probably driving her crazy as well. "They show up usually at the worst possible time and screws with our work. They can't die soon enough."

"Sounds like you really want them dead yourself" Berserk stated. He knew why but he wanted to keep up the appearance as a clueless freelancer.

"Taraks been on edge since Archangel and the diamond Samaritan attacked him in his home." She said and got more annoyed "And he's making my life a living hell, second guesses every damn thing I do. Getting the other merc bands to help us shows you just how desperate he is." She finished. And Shepard asked her more question about their plan of attack. How Tarak doesn't trust the other mercs and wants to wait and attack after them.

"What if Archangel survives all those attacks. Than you Suns are on your own. And what about when the Samaritans show up and help Archangel." Shepard questioned.

"(light chuckle) Doubt you got any fire power that can take out guys that can tank rocket launchers." Berserk comments

Jenoth looked annoyed at Berserks comment but continued "We haven't sighted any Samaritans in the area, so all we can do now is have everyone alert for them to show up while we take out Archangel with the gunship. We were lucky it wasn't beyond repair when the Samaritan damaged it, now we have to wait for Cathka to fix it again and blast Archangel to pieces with it. Than we can focus all our resources into hunting down the Samaritans." She finished with a smirk.

"You think you can take them out now after months of them fucking you over?" Berserk asked, doubting that they could back up that claim.

"They've never had all the merc groups teaming up on them with all their fire power. Archangel and his team learned that the hard way." She said with satisfaction at the vigilante team's deaths. Berserk kept his typical krogan expression on his face, but on the inside, he was ready to live up to his name and go BERSERK.

"We better get going." Shepard's reply knocked him out of his raging thoughts and led him away from the area before he could snap.

"We'll make them pay soon big guy." Shepard promised Berserk. He grunted and nodded as they made their way outside where the freelancers are hiding behind barricades and trading shots with Archangel. When Shepard asked one where Cathka was, he pointed them toward the gunship, and the trio headed toward it. Berserk couldn't see any sign of damage, but he knew Archangel did a number on it, he always was a crack shot. They approached four human freelancers standing by the gunship.

"Cathka?" Shepard asked the closet one. He pointed toward the back of the gunship that was being worked on by a Blue Sun batarian. The trio approached the batarian.

"Sergeant Cathka" the helmeted Blue Sun corrected as he faced the trio and depolarized his visor. "You must be the group Salkie mentioned."

"I'm surprised he bothered to mention a couple extra freelancers" Shepard stated.

"He said you three kind of stand out from most of the other freelancers, and he's right." He sadi as he looked a the three with an impressed look. "Anyway, the infiltration team is about to give us the signal. Archangel won't know what hit him." He said as he walked toward his work bench and terminal and picked up a cigarette and lit it. "Got any questions? This might be your last chance?" he asked as he inhaled his cigarette.

Shepard began to ask him questions about the plan of the attack. How Taraks the only one who us the gunship but its not ready yet. Cathka explains how he coordinates the freelancers and oversees fixing the gunship. How the infiltration team will trap Archangel and either face him or use their explosives. How the trio just needs to keep Archangels attention while they break through his barricade.

"So, the bridge is the only way in?" Shepard asked again.

"(exhaling smoke) Until the gunship's working again or the blasters finish with the tunnels." Cathka said (taking another drag from his cigarette) "Look, we got a plan, we don't need you trying to come up with any great ideas, just do your damn job. Collect your credits and go home." He said with annoyance.

"So the plan is just to just jump the wall and hope we don't get killed as we dodge Archangels bullets (scoffs) Great plan." Berserk sarcastically remarked.

"You don't have to make all the way across." Cathka said, not appreciating the krogan's tone "Just keep Archangel watching that bridge." He took another puff of his cigarette. Shepard's nose cringed and she waved the smoke out her face.

"Are you leading the assault?" Shepard asked the Sergeant.

"Ha!" Cathka laughed. "Tarak doesn't pay me to fight. I just plan the attacks and fix the damn gunship. You freelancers get the privilege of-"

He was cut off as his terminal came to life. Cathka goes up to it while the trio listens in. "Check. Bravo team GO, GO!" he ordered, and the four freelancers nearby responded and ran by the trio. Cathka looked at the trio "Archangels got quite a surprise waiting for him." He then polarized his visor. "But that means no more waiting for me." He walked back to work on the gunship. "Gotta get her back to a hundred percent before Tarak decides he needs her again." He finishes as he gets back to work.

Berserk saw Shepard eye a tool on the work bench that was still sparking. She looked at Berserk and Zaeed, giving them a devious smile. She picked up the tool and approached Cathka from behind.

"Your working to hard." Shepard said to the Blue Sun who gasped in pain as Shepard stabbed the tool into his back and he continued to scream in pain as the tool started to electrocute him. She approached the duo as Cathka dropped dead behind the gunship. "Let's get going boys" she said cheerily as she casually walked by them as if she didn't just brutally kill a guy from behind. The duo looked at each other than back to the body than back to each other than back to Shepard walking away.

"The lady can be scary when she wants to be." Zaeed noted as he started to follow her.

"You have no idea" Berserk stated as he too followed. He was not looking forward to giving her the answers she demanded. Because she just might manage to kill him if he held out on her any longer, and he has survived some hardcore killers.

They approached the barricade of the bridge and watched the freelancers jump over.

"Archangel doesn't have long, we need to get him out of there fast." Berserk stated.

"Then what the hell are we waiting for?" Zaeed asked, sounding ready to make some bodies drop.

Shepard looked at them and gave them that spine chilling smile again "Come on, let's give these guys a surprise of our own…"

* * *

**Archangel- Archangels hideout.**

"_Well, this is it."_ Archangel though to himself. The mercs weren't giving up anytime soon, no matter how many they lost. Eventually he'll run out of ammo, he could try and sneak out and grab guns off the bodies outside, but the exposed bridge wouldn't work in his favor for that and they were watching his position like a hawk. Was that the right human saying? He could never remember. What is a hawk anyway? Maybe Kickin Hawk knows? It's been a very long time since he heard a quip from his favorite human. But by the looks of things, he might be joining her in the afterlife very soon. Assuming turians and humans go to the same afterlife. Speaking of Kickin Hawk, he was hoping the Samaritan would come and turn the tables by now, but Archangel was one of the few people who called him friend. And he knew better than anyone that the Samaritan couldn't be everywhere at once, despite popular belief.

"Probably dealing with the Plague" he said to himself. The Samaritan has been on the case on the Plague since it started. Its probably too chaotic now. Besides, he couldn't reach him anyway, something was blocking his communications to the Samaritan. He thought the mercs at first but that couldn't be it because he managed to get a signal out to communicate wit his father, so it was something on Samaritan's end. "Damn device is probably acting up again." He told himself.

Speaking of dad, if this was going to be his last moments alive, he might as well contact his estranged father so they could at least bury the hatch before the end. Even than as Archangel was trapped within his own hideout with the corpses of his fallen team downstairs, he was at peace with the fact he died doing what he believed was right. He just wish he didn't drag the others down with him. He just hoped Samaritan would figure out where that bastard Sidonis went and make him pay for betraying them.

He apologized to his father over his communicator as more freelancers hopped over the bridge. His father, realizing his son's situation, told him to forget about that and told his son to finish up his 'target practice' and get back home so they can have sort this out in person. Before he could respond he saw something that caught his eye. A black-armored krogan with emerald eyes and a green bandanna. "Berserk" Archangel said than he told his father he called him back as the odds just got back into his favor.

"Well better late than never…" he trailed off as he saw a pale-skinned redhead human with emerald eyes. "…Gwen!?" He said to himself in disbelief, eyes widening under his helmet. His brain couldn't process what he was seeing, Shepard back from the dead!? It couldn't be, he had to be hallucinating. He's so stressed he's starting to see things. But he could see her as clear as day and she was even with Berserk and along with another individual that Archangel knew was Zaeed Massani. They acknowledged her presence, confirming she was real. "Gwen…" was all he could say as he heard a rocket being fired at his position.

He quickly dodged it and returned to his position to fire at the freelancer, hitting him in the heart. He killed a s second. Then Shepard flared her biotics and threw the next two off the balcony and to their deaths. The trio than made their way across the bridge. Archangel took a few concussion shots at them as they entered the building. He figured she was pretending to be a freelancer to get to him, so he decided to sell it with a few shots. He knew that she couldn't possibly know who he was under his helmet. "_Knowing her, she heard the grand tells of the bad boy turian who declared a one-man war again the mercenaries Omega, thinking to herself that a badass vigilante like that couldn't end here…and probably heard about the Samaritans too as they were amazing and all too." _He sheepishly thought as he heard the gunfire and biotics downstairs killing the freelancers that managed to get by him. Sloppy, but live and learn. He wondered if the Samaritan told her his big secret yet? Doubt he can keep it for long from someone like Shepard…he still couldn't believe that she was back, like the attack never happened. He had so many questions for her when this is all over._ "Boy, won't she be surprised when she finds out who's handsome face is under here._" He amusingly thought to himself as he heard a merc by the door behind him yell in pain as gunshots were heard. Figuring that is was safe on the other side, Archangel decided to open the door with his omni-tool as he was still scoping out the bridge.

He turned to see Shepard, Berserk and Zaeed move in with their guns aiming

"Archangel!" Berserk said in relief. The others lowered their weapons.

Archangel held up his left hand telling them to wait a minute as he was still watching the bridge. There was still one merc left hiding behind the pillar on his left. He waited for him to cautiously look over from his cover than Archangel sent a round in his neck and he fell to the ground choking as he died.

"Not bad" he heard from Zaeed.

"Nice to see you haven't lost your touch." Berserk commented.

"So, your Archangel?" he heard from Shepard.

"_Time for the big dramatic face reveal"_ Archangel amusingly thought to himself as he stood up to face the trio and walked toward them. He couldn't help but notice some obvious changes in Shepard's appearance. Specifically, the corpse-like skin complexion and orange glowing scars on the left side of her face. What the hell happened to her?

He sat down on a crate rifle still in hand and removed his helmet. The shocked look on Shepard's face was priceless. He imagined he had that same look when he first saw her alive again. Then he remembered the moment he was told she died. He was at a lose for words.

"Shepard…I thought you were dead…" Was all he could say.

* * *

**Shepard- Archangels hideout**

Shepard couldn't stop staring at him. Her brain was on overload. Was she seeing things or was it really him? The grey skinned Turian with blue face markings, blues armor and iconic light blue visor over is left eye. sniper rifle in his hand.

"Garrus…" she said in disbelief

Garrus Vakarian, her friend. One of the few who listened to her when she said Saren was bad news, in fact she only just confirmed his own disdain for the turian spectre.

She slowly approached Garrus who gave her his own turian equivalent of uncertainty, he probably finding it hard to believe that it was her and she couldn't blame him. She than surprised him and herself by engulfing him in a hug. She could tell she caught him off guard as he sat them awkwardly for a moment. She just lightly laughed. Like when she was reunited with Tali on Freedoms Progress and when she found out that Joker and Doctor Chawkas were on the Normandy. She was happy to see more of their old crew alive and well…but Garrus wasn't exactly out of the woods yet since he managed to get all of Omegas mercenaries gunning for him. She eventually ended the hug not caring that anyone saw her Commander persona drop for a moment.

"What are you doing here?" was all Shepard could really say, she still couldn't believe that the mysterious turian they came to get would be one of her best friends. Garrus looked at her and lightly chuckled himself.

"heh. Just keeping my skills sharp. A little target practice…" Garrus said tiredly.

"You okay?" She asked in concern.

"Been better" Garrus answered. "But it sure is good to see friendly faces. Killing mercs is hard work. Especially on my own." He added as he looked as Berserk with a friendly face.

"Berserk, a little late for the party don't you think?" he said jokingly

"(grunt) Good to see you too you crazy pyjak." Berserk said humorously.

"And the others?" Garrus said that in a tone that sounded like he was trying to convey a hidden message to the krogan.

"…Most of them are down for now. What's left is waiting outside as backup." Berserk said with a similar tone to Garrus.

"(sign) Well, guess there's always a complication when superheroes come to save the day." Garrus said

Was he in on this big secret the Samaritans have been keeping? "_That's it. When this is over, I'm getting answers, even if I have to kick this krogan's ass to get it."_ She thought irritably. "_But for now…"_

"How did you manage to piss off every mercenary organization in the terminus system?" she asked.

"It wasn't easy" Garrus said with a humorously. "I really had to work at it. I am amazed that they teamed up to fight me. They must either really hate me, or they their counting the Samaritans to come bail me out and hit them with everything they got."

"Probably both." Berserk mused.

"Definitely both, you guys have drove Tarak nearly mad." Zaeed says with an impressed tone.

"Glad to hear it." Garrus replied

"Since when did you start calling yourself Archangel?" Shepard teased with a smirk

Garrus rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and chuckled. "Just a name the locals gave me for…all my good deeds (chuckle/clears throat) I don't mind it but please, it's a (clears throat) Just Garrus to you." He said with a flustered tone. Shepard smiled wider at his flustered tone. Than her look changed to curiosity.

"So…Omega?" She asked curiously.

"Not the first place you imagined finding me I take it" Garrus joked than became more serious. "I got tired of all the red tape and bureaucratic crap on the citadel…I figured I could do more good on my own. 'Least it's not hard to find criminals here. All I have to do is point my gun and shoot." He finished

"_Speaking of_ "Shepard thought.

"You managed to nail me good, a couple time by the way." She stated as she worked soreness from the spots where he shot her. Not mad but just liked to get a reaction out of him.

"You definitely took a lot of shots at me, you damn bastard." Berserk said with a faux angry tone.

"Concussive rounds only. No harm done. Didn't want the merc to getting suspicious." He tried to play it off cool, but he is trying hard not to smirk.

"Uh huh. Sure…" she said with a fake 'I believe you' tone.

"(chuckled) If I wanted to do more than take your shields down, I would have…Beside you were taking your sweet time, I needed to get you moving." Garrus jokingly said.

"Well, we're here and now we need to get you out before they bring out the big guns." Berserk said

"That won't be easy, the bridge doesn't work in our favor as an exit." Zaeed chimed in.

"Right, while its good for bringing those witless idiots out in the open, it works both ways, we'll get slaughtered going out that way." Garrus explained.

"Think its time I call Magister and have his Samaritans help out." Shepard said as she activated her omni-tool. She noticed that both Garrus and Berserk shared a look, she wondered about it has the line was open. "Magister, we got Archangel, we could use the Samaritans help in making a quick exit." She waited for a response, but no one responded. This was not a good sign. "Magister?" She called him again. "Magister!" She raised her voice. "Answer damn it!" She said only to get nothing but static. Seriously, this guy calls us and asks for our help, but he gives us the silent treatment the moment we ask for help!? She looked at Berserk who kept a neutral facial expression. "Why the hell isn't he picking up?" she asked the krogan irritably.

The krogan looked at her and he just grunted "I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?" Shepard asked getting more irritated.

"I mean I don't know." Berserk said with his own irritation. "They don't tell us helpers everything. Whatever's going on, it doesn't involve us being in the loop. Why? I don't know!" he said irritated.

Both stared each other down until Garrus stepped in between them and tried to ease the tension.

"We can argue about this later" Garrus intervened. "Right now, we need to focus on getting out of here, preferably alive if that's okay with everyone." He said.

"Heads up, I see movement across the bridge" Zaeed warned as he looked down the bridge.

Everyone looked in Zaeed's direction than back at each other. Shepard glared at the krogan a little bit longer than sighed and turned her attention to the bridge where Garrus now looking down with the scope of his rifle.

"They know their infiltration team failed" Garrus informed as he lowered his rifle and handed it to Shepard "Take a look." he said. "Scouts. Eclipse, I think."

Shepard looked down the scope and saw that mechs were the first to drop down, followed by Eclipse mercs. Deciding to vent her anger, Shepard took a shot at the first mech she saw and blew its head off.

"More than scouts" Shepard said as she handed back Garrus rifle. "One less now though."

"Indeed" Garrus responded. "We better get ready. I stay up here, I can do a lot of damage from this vantage point." He looks at her "You…just do what you do best." He said and managed to get Shepard to smile. "It will be like old times Shepard."

"When we get out of this, your buying me a drink for saving your ass." She said with a smile as she got her weapons.

"(chuckle) Of course, it's only the gentlemanly thing a guy can do for a pretty lady." Garrus quipped

She smiled but then turned her attention to Zaeed and Berserk.

"You guys head down stairs and keep them away from the front door, I'll stay up here and shoot from above with Garrus." She ordered the pair.

"On it." Zaeed responded and went for the stairs.

"Fine." Berserk grunted and followed

Shepard looked at Berserk as he left. She wasn't as mad as before since she can't blame him for Magister's silent treatment. But she was still annoyed that he won't reveal what he does know about the Samaritans. She was brought out of her thoughts as her comms came to life.

["Shepard" came the voice Miranda "We're at the merc base, so far no ones looking at us with suspicion, I'm guessing all their attention are on you at the moment."]

"You guessed right." Shepard replied.

["Want us to start making noise on our end?" Jacob asked]

"No." Shepard answered. "Hang back until their numbers start to dwindle. Which shouldn't take long given how many dumbass mercs they throw at us."

["Copy that Commander." Miranda replied. "We'll stay out of sight until then."]

"Copy" Shepard answered as she looked back at Garrus. "We got friendly's in the merc base, they'll start causing havoc once we knock down a couple mercs."

"Hope they're as good at causing mayhem and chaos as you are." He said teasingly.

"Their no crazy vigilante sniper, but they can get the job done." She teased back. Though now she had to explain to him later why she is working with a pair of Cerberus agents.

Garrus: "Let's give these bastards everything we got."

* * *

**Berserk- Archangels hideout**

Berserk knew the Magister problem would come up eventually, but he just didn't know what to do about it, and it's not like the mercs gave him a lot of time to think this shit through. Well, he'll have to tell her now, but that can wait since it won't do them any good now. Telling her how limited he is now may not help the situation. Especially now, when they're in the middle of a fire fight.

Berserk killed a Salarian Eclipse that got to close to the door with a head shot. Leaving six Eclipse troopers remaining. None of them made it to the door with the mixture of bullets from above and below. Berserk manage to get two more in the chest. Zaeed fired a concussive shot at the final helmeted human Eclipse and than head shot him. None of the mercs made it inside.

To add insult to injury Garrus fired a shot across the bridge barricade. The sound of it nailing someone along with the pained shout of a female merc told Berserk that he got one. Eventually a mechanical claw holding the Eclipse a heavy mech came across the barricade and drooped the mech won the ground and it began to activate. Twenty Eclipse troopers emerged from the barricade with Jaroth in the back with a smug look on his face.

"You won't be smiling for long pyjak." Berserk said out loud, while smiling.

"Oh, this ought to be good." Zaeed stated with anticipation and a smile.

They looked at each other and nodded in agreement to just sit back and watch the show from cover by the entrance.

["Dammit, there sending out the heavy mechs." Garrus said warily over the comm.]

["That problem should take care of itself." Shepard said with glee.]

["What are you…Oh…Oh you didn't" Garrus said, with his own glee tone"]

Eventually the mech turned around and greeted the confused Jaroth whose face turned to shock and anger as the heavy mech open fired on the Eclipse. Two were gunned down immediately and one was hit by a rocket. Two managed to sneak by and ran for the entrance but were gunned down by Berserk and Zaeed the moment they ran by their cover. The mercs fired at their own mech and started to drain its shields. One got two close and was swatted away by the mechs left arm and sent over the bridge. It grabbed a salarian Eclipse by his head and slammed him into the ground. It fired a rocket to its right and hit three merc who and blew them to pieces. Eventually, the mech's shields were gone and began to take damage.

"Should probably get back to shooting them while their distracted." Zaeed said to Berserk

"Agreed." Berserk said as they broke cover and began firing at the mechs. Shepard and Garrus continued as well. The mech was busy killing the last three mercs, while Jaroth tried to hop back over the other side of the bridge. But was shot with a cryo shot from Shepard and was shattered by a bullet from Garrus. Garrus than fired a precise headshot at the mech before it could turn on them and it exploded into pieces.

["Looks like that's all of them." Garrus said "You guys are kicking ass Shepard, even managed to get Jaroth in the process. I been hunting that little bastard for months."]

["We still got the Blue Suns and Blood Pack to deal with. Think we can make run for it?" Shepard asked]

["Maybe. Let's see what they're up to." Garrus replied]

Berserk and Zaeed looked over from cover but saw no one coming over the bridge.

"It's quiet" Berserk said "Too quiet. That's never a good sign."

"Tarak is too mad to be stealthy right now" Zaeed said "And Garm doesn't strike me as the stealthy type. Something else is going on."

The building starts to shake, and an explosion is heard coming from under good.

"That can't be good." Berserk commented.

["Damn it! They breached the lower level." Garrus exclaimed]

"God dammit, I knew it was too easy." Zaeed commented with annoyance.

["Well, they had to use their brains eventually." Garrus stated "You three better get down there, I'll keep the bridge clear."]

["Lets split up two and two. Keep someone here with you Garrus." Shepard suggested]

["You sure? Who knows what you'll find down there." Garrus responded]

[Berserk. Stay with Garrus keep him safe." Shepard ordered]

"Don't need to tell me twice" Berserk acknowledged. He lost too many friends today, he was not going to lose another one.

["Thanks Shepard…you better get going."] Garrus Sounded almost hesitant to let her go.

["Stay safe Garrus"] Shepard sounded concerned and hesitant about leaving his side,

["Good luck." Garrus said]

Shepard came down the stairs and motioned for Zaeed to follow. She looked at Berserk before they left for the lower levels.

"Try not to get your head blown off, you crazy reptile." Zaeed said to Berserk jokingly. The krogan snorted in amusement.

"Keep him safe big guy." Shepard said softly, not sounding as irritated as the last time she talked to him.

"(sigh) I'll make sure none of them get to him." Berserk promised the commander. She nodded as she and Zaeed left for the lower levels.

Berserk turned back to the entrance and waited for another idiot to try crossing the bridge. After a few moments of silence however…

["So, you've kept the big secret from her?"] Garrus said over the comm, on a private channel only they use.

"It's not something I just share with everyone I meet." Berserk answered.

["You shared it with me when I first met you"]

"(grunt) I got careless and had no choice but to tell you. Plus, it was helpful to have someone who knew. It made asking for help easier…when I actually needed help it that is." Berserk explained.

["No shame in asking for help from an awesome badass vigilante like yours truly."] Garrus joked.

"Heh. Who had to bail who out every time they tried to go take on a merc boss and nearly got their ass handed to them?" Berserk said mockingly.

["…It was all part of the plan…. I had them right where I wanted, you just showed up before I could spring my trap."]

"Keep telling yourself that." Berserk said while amusingly shaking his head.

["Knowing Shepard, she has some insane mission that involves the fate of the galaxy and she's looking for people to help out. I plan on joining. What about you?"]

Berserk thought about it and he had to admit, he was kind of anxious of thinking about leaving Omega. He hasn't been anywhere else since arriving and he didn't know what to except. Especially how the rest of the galaxy would react to the Samaritans. But he knew the stories of the Shepard, the savoir of the galaxy. And not just what he heard in news stories. Garrus shared his adventures with Shepard and the threat they faced…the Reapers. The rest of the galaxy may have been fine with leaving them as myths, but he knew that he couldn't ignore a threat like that. "_Grandpa wouldn't ignore this…" _Berserk shook himself from his thoughts.

"Shepard said the Collectors are up to something big and I can't let them get away with it, so yes I'm going to join." He answered honestly.

["The Collectors are involved? You think it has to do with that trafficking operation we caught them in last time they were here?"] Garrus asked

"It's possible, never know unless I go find out." Berserk answered.

["You know that means you have to tell her, right? Can't exactly hide it on a ship, its not like hiding on Omega."]

He hated it when he was right. "I know, I'll tell her over when this crap is over and done with."

Berserk eventually spotted ten vorcha and a krogan crossing bridge and charging. "Heads up we got company." He alerted Garrus as he aimed his pistol and fired at them and shot two lead vorcha in the chest, both dropped dead. Shots from the top floor went off and two more went down. Berserk fired again and hit one vorcha in the head. As they got closer, he got behind cover to avoid their shots. He than switched to his shotgun and waited…the first one to pass by got shot in the back. The next got smashed the face with the butt of Berserk's gun. Two more vorcha out in the open got downed by Garrus.

Berserk came out of cover and fired his shotgun at the last vorcha, killing him. The krogan continued to fire at Berserk who went into cover again. Once the krogan got close. Berserk came out of cover and shot him twice, draining his shields. Then Berserk charged at him and activated his omni-tool, and a transparent emerald blade emerged from his wrist. Berserk yelled as he stabbed the blade through the other krogan's head, right through his mask and the krogan went stiff as slid to the ground. As he deactivated his blade, Berserk heard more explosions, only this time it came from the merc base. It sounded like someone was tossing grenades and firing rockets all over the place.

["Sounds like more of Shepard's team causing a disturbance from within merc HQ. That should help take the heat off us."] Garrus said in a relieved tone.

Well looks like those Cerberus agents were helpful after all. He never thought he would be grateful for someone from that organization to get involved.

* * *

**Garrus- Archangel Hideout**

Garrus sniped another vorcha across the bridge when he got an alert from his omni-tool that Shepard succeeded in locking off the tunnels. But just than he heard one of the doors being breached behind him on the first floor.

"Berserk, heads up they're coming from behind!" he shouted to the krogan who turned and nodded as he went to the door that was being breached. Garrus than activated his comm.

"Get back here Shepard. They're coming in through the door!"

["Copy, be there as soon as I can… (shooting in the background) Son of…I'll be there soon. Zaeed fall back!"] sounds like Shepard still dealing with the stragglers that got through.

Garrus attention was brought back to the door downstairs as they opened and a pissed off Garm cam marching in with a pack of five vorcha, and two varren being held on leashes by another korgan.

"Argh, rip them to shreds!" Garm shouted.

Garrus sniped a vorcha on Garm's right and ducked back in cover on top of the stairs as they opened fired on Garrus.

"Watch my back, I'll deal with Archangel" he heard Garm order his men. Then he heard a shotgun blast and a vorcha gasping in pain and a thud. He looked over the top of his cover and saw Berserk standing between Garm and the stairs. Garm held up his hand to have his men stand down. He looked surprised to see the younger krogan but than shifted back to his angry facial expression.

"Out of my way kid." Garm growled as he warned the younger krogan.

"That ain't happening." Berserk said, not at all threatened by the older krogan.

"First the human, and now Archangel." He snarled. "You couldn't be more of a disappointment."

Berserk smirked "For once, I'm happy to disappoint." He said mockingly.

"Think you can take me on?" Garm asks "(scoffs) You got a lot to learn boy, provided you actually live."

"Then show me what you got to teach old man" Berserk taunted.

Garm looked at the younger krogan with anger and disappointment "Kill him" he ordered his men.

Berserk got a shot off at one of the vorcha who dropped dead. The Blood Pack krogan released the varren and they charged at Berserk. Garrus managed to get one in the eye but the other pounced on Berserk and started biting him. Garrus couldn't shoot it without hurting Berserk. Shots from the other Blood Pack got his attention and shot another vorcha in the neck. Berserk managed to pull the varren off and slammed it into the ground hard. Then he noticed Garm charging at him and threw the varren corpse at the Blood Pack Leader, who swatted it away and tackled the younger krogan to the ground. Garm was on top of Berserk as he tried to hit him in the face with the butt of his gun. Berserk grabbed the gun and used it to hit Garm in the face and give him the chance to kick Garm off. When he got back up to his feet, he tried to slam his right fist into Garm but the older krogan caught his fist and then his other fist, and they struggled to push each other back.

While they were fighting, the Blood Pack krogan and the last vorcha made their way up the stairs and tried to shoot at Garrus with their rifles. Garrus managed to hit the vorcha in the left eye but the korgan got too close, so he had to retreat into the other room and get some distance. He managed to snag an inferno grenade from a nearby crate and tossed it at the krogan who immediately burst into flames as the grenade went off , but the krogan kept coming.

"_Damn redundant nervous system_!" Garrus mentally shouted

As the flaming krogan charged, Garrus managed to dodge out to his left and let the krogan smash into a wall. He then aimed and waited for the krogan to turn around and shot him in is right eye, killing him.

Garrus made it back to the stairs to see Berserk headbutt Garm, forcing him to back away. Berserk than activated his omni-blade and tried to stab Garm, but the Blood Pack leader dodged to his right and grabbed Berserk's arm and punched Berserk in the face, dazing him and then proceeded to lift the younger off the ground and threw him into a nearby pillar.

Before he could further attack the younger krogan, Garrus took a shot at Garm's back and he turned around to glare at Garrus. Apparently, he hasn't forgotten the hell Archangel has given him and started to charge toward the stairs. Garrus tried to shoot him but the krogan tanked the shots as he was dead set on killing the turian. Garm regenerates faster than any krogan Garrus has ever fought!. Garrus was momentarily distracted by flashing lights coming from the ground floor (reminded him of a camera flash) but was brought back to reality as Garm was close enough to grab the sniper rifle and tossed it over the balcony and back to the ground floor. Than he punches Garrus in the face and the turian, his shield toook most of the damage, but got thrown back into the other room and hitting the balcony he's been using to watch the bridge.

Garm entered the room and was towering over Garrus with the intent to kill...until they both heard something crash through the door behind them. They both looked back to see the door was smashed through to make it larger and wider with all the metal bent inward into the room. But that's not what caught their attention. It was the giant red Samaritan, Four Arms, that got their attention as he towered over Garm.

"Pick on someone your own size!" The Samaritan said to Garm who then charged at the Samaritan. Four Arms managed to grab hold of Garm who tried to push him back, but the Samaritan proved strong enough to bring them to a standstill. Four Arms used his two lower arms to strike Garm in the sides multiple times and weakened him enough to lift him with his upper arms and toss him into the wall on his left, trapping Garm in the now hole wall. Four Arms than reared back his two right arms as he ran to the trapped krogan and smashed into his face, completely obliterating it. Blood and mulched flesh coated the red giants face.

He then approached Garrus who looked amazed at what he saw. Sure, he's seen the Samaritan in action a few times now, but it's always surprising to see him take on krogan like its easy.

"You okay Garrus?" Four Arms asked in concern.

Garrus nodded, thankfully his shields took most of the damage. Four Arms offered his lower right hand and Garrus accepted and was hoisted back to his feet. "Nice to see you back in action, wish it was before I got punched across the room, but I'm not complaining."

"Well, now all that's left is the Blue Suns, I think now is a good time to go on the offensive." Four Arms said as he cracked his knuckles."

"You read my mind" Garrus said with a turian smirk. "He's expecting the Samaritans to show up from the other side, he's not expecting them to be in the building already, so he may not see you…

Both were alerted by the sounds of the gunship hovering over the right side of the building and shooting out the window. Four Arms gets in front of Garrus and acts as cover from the gunship and takes all the bullets in his back. He grunts in discomfort of the bullets hitting him, but it doesn't him.

"Damn it, I thought I already took care of that gunship!" Garrus exclaimed

"They fixed it but not completely, Shepard took care of that when she killed the mechanic." Four Amr's explained.

"Heh, well I have a feeling you can take care of it any way." Garrus replied.

"Samaritan?!" Tarak shouted from the speakers of his gunship "How the hell you get past us?! UGH!" he said as Jentha and four men with rocket launchers came in. "Kill those motherfuckers!?" He shouts.

Jentha and the mercs open fire and the rockets are hurling toward the duo. Four Arms pushes Garrus to cover and tanks the first rocket and takes a step back but then surprises everyone by grabbing the other four in each arm and then hurls them back at the mercs who take cover but all but two manages to escape the explosion.

As Jentha gets up to fire another round she is lifted by biotics and thrown out the window where she yells as she falls to her death.

Garrus and Four Arms turn around as they notice Shepard and Zaeed walk in and both are surprised to see Four Arms, well Garrus can see where this is going.

* * *

**Shepard- Archangels Hideout**

["Shepard we're giving the mercs hell on our end" Jacob said. "But most of the Blue Suns are heading for the building, and the gunship keeps showing up to stop us from moving up."]

["Its looks like they haven't completely fixed it judging from the smoke." Miranda spoke up. "I take you had a hand in that" She asked amusingly]

"I thought the mechanic was working too hard so I gave him a well needed break" Shepard said as she re-entered the hideout and was going up the stairs "He wasn't on board with that at first, but I can be persuasive." She said with a smirk. Jacob chuckled on the comm that Miranda chimed in.

["Well its going to be difficult to get to you with the gunship doing flybys and a few Blue Suns stayed behind with a few remaining freelancers to push us back."] Miranda explained.

"Copy, well do what we can on our own for now." Shepard ended the call and made it to the door…

What she wasn't expecting was the Samaritan, Four Arms, hurling rockets at a squad of Blue Suns and nailing two of them. Jentha was getting back up to fire another rocket but Shepard decided to step in and grabbed the Sun with her biotics and hurl her outside. The last two got up but Zaeed got a incendiary shot at one and set him ablaze while Garrus shot the last one. Four Arms than turned to Shepard

"Hey Shepard, just in time for the party." Four Arms said. What confused Shepard was how he said that like he knows her, but they just met. And this guy was supposedly injured, yet he's fine and fighting like he was never injured to begin with! And how the hell did he get here so quick! Miranda and Jacob never said they spotted him, yet he's here, like he was just here to begin with. And where the hell is Berserk? She didn't see him downstairs.

Shepard than look to Garrus "Garrus when did…how did…where's…" She was at a lost at what's going on.

"Well uh Shepard...its, well it's an interesting and long story" Garrus stuttered as he tried to think of an explanation. Than the gunship showed and forced the two humans and turian to take cover while the Samaritan just stood his ground. Ten Suns came through the window and the gunship disappeared. "But it can wait for later, after we kill all the Suns." Garrus said as he fired a shot and killed a batarian Sun.

Shepard had really no choice has she shot at a turian Sun from her cover behind the door while Zaeed was behind a crate near the door and shot another Sun in the chest.

"I got these guys." Four Arms said as he charged at the eight mercs. He punched the one in front straight out the window than grabbed another batarian sun on his lefts and threw him into another sun both hit the wall. He reared his right fists to punch two Suns on his right-

What happened next made Shepard's jaw drop. White flashing camera-like lights happened around Four Arms and the surrounding area had a photo negative appearance as the lights flashed… and Fours Arms was morphing!

Everyone's eyes widen in shock. Even the five merc paused as they were unable to take their eyes of the scene in front of them. The flashing lights stopped and standing between the mercs was…was…a Quarrian!?

What was a red four-armed giant was now the quarrian helper that Shepard recognized from the video…and he was still in the middle of his punch when it happened. When he hit the mercs armor he gasped in slight pain and shook his hand to ease the pain. When he looked at his hand, he stared at it than looked at the rest of his body, then he noticed the position he was in now.

"Aww man…" the Quarian said (A/N: Greg Cipes voice" Beast Boy Voice from Teen Titans/Kevin 11's voice from Alien Force/Ultimate/Omniverse)

The mercs eventually snapped out of their daze and aimed at the quarrian but a shot from Garrus got their attention as one hit a mercs.

"Take cover Kid!" Garrus shouted. Shepard and Zaeed also broke from their stupor and continued to fire giving the quarrian a chance to run and jump behind a couch in the middle of the room. Shepard glanced at the quarrian and saw him lift his poncho to reveal the hourglass symbol located on the left side of his suit, where his heart would be.

"Come on, come on already…" he said to the symbol of his chest which was sparking for a moment but then it stopped. "Uhg! Great…" he said giving up on the device.

To say Shepard had a lot of questions right now was putting it mildly. However, the mercs that were about to swarm the place gave her little time to feel the migraine growing in her head as she tried to process what the hell she witnessed. For now, all she could do was shoot first and ask questions later.

She looked back at the quarrian has he was now on his omni-tool, then a green combat drone appeared and attacked the mercs.

"Get them Rusty!" the quarrian shouted as the drone started to shock the mercs. Distracting them while Shepard and the others gunned down the three of the mercs but one managed to jump over the couch and aimed his gun at the quarrian. Before he could shoot, the flashing happened again happened again…now it was the turian helper! Who than charged a biotic attack and sent the merc into the celling and denting the celling and killing the merc.

"Nice try merc." The turian said in his duel tone voice (A/N: Khary Payton voice/Cyborg voice from Teen Titans) (A closer look at his face revealed that the dark green markings in the middle of his face resembled an hourglass while a circle went around his face creating the iconic hourglass symbol)

Before anyone could respond, five more propelled into the room and opened fired, destroying the drone.

"Look out!" Garrus called out to the turian…and as if on que the flashing happened again and the turian morphs. Wings grown from his back and his shape becomes a family moth alien who immediately turns intangible and then flies over to the mercs and encases them in ice as he passes by them.

"These guys really need to _chill _out." Came the eerie voice of Big Chill.

"Please don't start with the puns." Garrus groaned, has he broken cover to shot one of the mercs to pieces. Shepard and Zaeed followed his lead as they shot the others to pieces as well.

* * *

**Garrus- Archangel's Hideout**

The area near the window had become piled in bodies by the time they were done. No other mercs came through the window. They had a moment to rest but Big Chill immediately morphed into a creature only Garrus has seen before. A velociraptor-like humanoid with a black uniform, with a white stripe front that goes down from his neck to his waist. His head is cover in a cone-shaped helmet that convers his entire head and a visor that covers his entire face. He has a black tail with five blue strips and seems to have black balls on his feet. Three sharp scissors like fingers on each hand with sharp pointed elbows. The hourglass symbol was on his chest. This being was called XLR8.

"Yes finally" XLR8 said in a fast-raspy voice as the others looked at him in awe. "Now I can get us all out of here before more Suns show up and-"

He never finished as his body began to morph again and now in his place was the salarian transformation, who after looking at himself, let his arms fall to his sides and he hunched over dejectedly while the others just had a 'WTF' look.

"Sometimes I loathe this device" he said in a fast manner (Like Mordin) (A/N: Rob Paulsen Voice/Donatello TMNT 2012)

Everyone could hear footstep of mercs that were entering the base and the shouts of people outside who were crossing the bridge.

"Very problematic…" the Samaritan commented

Well, this was not looking too good, the Blue Suns are swarming the base, Samaritan is glitching out, and Shepard looks like she wants to shout in annoyance at the bizarre scenes that unfolded with his shapeshifting friend.

But Shepard face quickly schooled itself back. Perhaps finding out about genocidal machines made it easier for her to accept this. Or she reached her point of handling all this insanity and just decided to focus on what she knew best. Fighting and being Commander Shepard the badass.

Garrus looked out his vantage point of the bridge. He counted ten Suns climbing over the barricade and were crossing the bridge. The gunship flew over the merc base shooting rockets, probably trying to hit Shepard's backup team.

"I count a dozen already inside." He heard Shepard's voice and looked at her from his vantage point.

"There's at least ten on the bridge." Garrus revealed.

"Alright" Shepard said "Me and Zaeed will deal with the ones down stairs" she then pointed to the Samaritan "You and…him…stay here and take out any more that try to come in." she ordered.

"Got it." Garrus.

"Let's go Zaeed" Shepard said as she charged her biotic and jumped off the balcony of the second floor and slammed into the ground to take on the Blue Suns inside.

"This day just keeps getting more mental by the minute." Zaeed mutter to himself as he went to the door and made his way to the stairs.

Garrus turned to his perch and sniped the lead Sun in the head while the rest opened fired. Garrus ducked back into cover. Samaritan took cover with Garrus on his left as they waited for the mercs to stop and reload.

"Well, she took it better than I thought." Garrus commented as he got up to fire at the mercs than duck back down.

"Multiple situations occurring all at once. Probably no time to process the anomaly that is currently me. Will most likely bombard me with demands for answers when crises had been averted." Samaritan said rapidly as he picked up a discarded pistol from. Garrus forgot how fast this guy talks as a salarian.

"Well, she's seen and done some weird things at this point, so I think it will work out. After all I handled your secret pretty well." Garrus said as the duo stood up and fired, each hitting a merc.

"You stared at me stupefied for ten minutes. Made no movement in that time. Then asked yourself if you were experiencing early stages of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Began to assume you were seeing hallucinations. Then came to conclusion you were dreaming. Asked me to punch you to wake you" Samaritan said with a fast-deadpan reply.

"…Now you just exaggerating…my reaction wasn't that bad." Garrus defended.

"Keep telling yourself that." Came Samaritans simple reply as he returned fire with the Suns.

Both were altered to the sound of a small object rolling between them…A GRENADE!

Both jumped away from the edge as the grenade exploded. Garrus was face first on the ground and slowly got up. His ears where still wringing and has he got up he noticed five Suns near the broken window and were taking their aim.

"Crap…" was all Garrus could say…than three diamond shards penetrated the chest armor of the three mercs in front, all drooping dead while the last two, a turian and a batarian, stared stunned.

"Special delivery!" came the voice of Diamondhead, who ran past Garrus and fired two more shards. The turian merc got hit through the helmet while the batarian was shot in the heart. He went back to Garrus and helped him up. "Sometimes I love this device." He remarked as he patted the dial, which still didn't respond.

"How much longer until you can control it again." Garrus asked, hoping that he could go XLR8 again and get us out of here.

"No clue…at least no clue in this form." Diamondhead Shrugged.

The duo heard glass shattering from the other side of the room as five more Suns came propelling in. Garrus aimed and shot the middle batarian Sun in the neck while Diamondhead shot the two on the down batarians right. And of course, Samaritan morphs again, this time into the batarian transformation.

"Ugh, really getting tired of this…" The Samaritan replied (A/N: Clancy Brown's voice/Mr. Krabs/The Dragon's Voice from Alien Force/ETC.) as he charged his biotics and charged at the mercs, dodging their shots and got close enough he activated his emerald omni-blade and impaled the merc on the left than he turned to the last one who aimed his gun but the Samaritan he grabbed it and wrestled it out of the mercs hands and hit him with the butt of the gun. As the merc fell on his back, the Samaritan planted a foot on his chest and shot the down merc with his own gun.

The room was clear again and Garrus could hear the fighting downstairs getting quieter. Shepard's clearing them out, now they just need to take care of the one's on the bridge-

"ARCHANGEL!"

"_Crap, forgot about the gunship…"_

* * *

**Samaritan- Archangel's Hideout**

Samaritan turned to see the gunship in the broken window behind the duo. Garrus turned around fast, hoping to take a shot at the cockpit. But the turrets opened fired and nailed Garrus who gasped in pain and collapsed to the ground.

"Garrus!" Samaritan shouted and tried to get to Garrus

Tarak turned his turrets on Samaritan.

The Samaritan had to get behind cover on the other side of the room across from Garrus. The turian managed to crawl to cover. Samaritan could see that the wounds weren't fatal; however, it'd be difficult to walk without medical treatment.

"You think you can screw with the Blue Suns!" Tarak shouted out as he deactivates the turrets and prepared the rocket launchers.

"This ends NOW!" Tarka shouted as he was about fired on Garrus.

"NO!" The Samaritan shouted. Time slowed down for the Samaritan. Garrus was trying to get up and dodge but he was too hurt to move fast-

Then he felt it. The Samaritan could feel another transformation was about to happen. Without thinking, the Samaritan acted on instinct and jumped out of cover as his body began to contort and grow. He was on Garrus as the rocket fired and got in front of his friend and took the hit.

* * *

**Shepard- Archangel's**

"ARCHANGEL!"

Shepard could hear Tarak shouting from down the stairs and turrets being fired.

"Garrus!" She heard an unknown voice shout his name and the turrets continued.

Shepard used her biotics to slam the last merc into the ground. But as she finished him, she felt a shot hit and her shields flared, taking the hit. She turned to see six more Suns enter the front. Jesus, these guys don't stop!

"You think you can screw with the Blue Suns!" Tarak shouted from his gunship.

Shepard downs a turian Sun and looked as the stairs for a moment in concern, wanting to go help her friend.

She didn't see the batarian Sun sneak up on her until a shot went off and the batarian dropped dead and on fire due to an incendiary bullet from Zaeed who was across the room.

"Go on ahead Shepard, I got these bastards" Zaeed shouted as he fired another round and hit another Sun in the gut.

Shepard nodded in appreciation and made her way halfway up the stairs when the turrets stopped.

"This ends NOW!" Tarak shouted

"NO!" the unknown voice shouted.

She heard a rocket being shot and an explosion in the next room as she sprinted the rest of the way. Once inside she was greeted by a familiar hulking figure with coils in his back. He was facing away from the busted window where the gunship just fired. He was in a knelling position and crouched over as if he was covering something. When he sat up straight, her were eyes drawn to the cradled form of Garrus…the right side of his face was burned.

"Garrus!" Shepard shouted in concern as she knelled beside him while Frankenstrike placed him behind cover and Shepard started to do what she could to help him.

"SAMARITAN!" Tarak shouted in rage and annoyance.

Frankenstrike got up and faced the gunship as another rocket was launched but he shot is midair with electricity.

"I HAD ENOUGH OF THIS FUCKING FREAKSHOW!"

Eventually the gunship ran out of rockets and switched back to bullets. Frankenstrike was unfazed by the bullets. Frankenstrike than roared as he charged at the gunship but then the flashing happens again and Frankenstrike's form began to shrink as he leaped at the gunship. From Shepard's perspective, it looked like he just shrunk out of existence.

Shepard was confused, and then concerned as the gunship started to take aim…than it just jerked wildly to its right.

"What the…what's going on!?" Tarak shouted in confusion, apparently, he lost control of the gunship...it started to behave erratically, and the guns started to go off randomly. Shepard watched as it jerked to the front of the building and faced the remining Suns on the bridge who tried to run as the random bullets rained uncontrollably.

While flabbergasted by the scene her attention was brought to the coughing of her injured friend who opened his and looked at Shepard.

"(cough) Hey Shepard (groan in pain)"

"Garrus!" Shepard exclaimed in joy and relief to see he was awake. While tempted to hug him again, she was worried that would hurt him more, so she decided to activate her omni-tool and begin treatment with medi-gel. His vitals were stable, and scan showed that the bullet wounds aren't as bad. It looks like the explosion from the rocket only burned his face but nothing that required serious medical attention, Chakwas can just bandage it up.

"My face feels numb." Garrus instead. Shepard smiled.

"I know I gave you something for the burns." She explained

"How bad is it" he asked.

"No worse than usual" She joked. "You're going to have one hell of a scar though."

"(light chuckle) Well, some women find facial scars attractive…mind you, most those women are korgan." He replied humorously.

Shepard laughed and shook her head in amusement.

Their attention was brought back to the gunship which suddenly stooped firing, and was now hovering steadily.

Then unexpectedly, it started to become coated in a black substance and green circuitry followed. The windshield that showed a panicked Tarak was coated as well. A glowing green circle covered the windshield and the cockpit turned its attention to duo in the building. What caught Shepard's eye was the hourglass symbol on the top of the cockpit. The duo stared at the gunship for a good ten second before the cockpit opened and launched Tarak out and face first on the floor near Shepard and Garrus.

Just as he was getting up, he looked toward the duo "You fu-"Gunshots from Shepard's pistol interrupted as she gunned down the Blue Sun.

"Good riddance" Garrus said as he spat on the Suns corpse. Zaeed came into the room a few seconds later and saw the body.

"Well, looks like that it for Tar-What the hell is that thing!" Zaeed said as he looked at the tricked-out gunship

The gunships 'eye' focused on the trio and the next thing they knew a giant blob hand emerged from the right wing and gave a thumbs up, then it turned and headed for the merc base. The only one who wasn't shocked to fazed even a little was Garrus. Like this was just a regular Tuesday for him.

"Garrus…"

"…Yeah?"

"…We need to talk"

"…heh, I figured…"

* * *

**Miranda- Merc Base**

Most of the mercenaries went after Shepard and Archangel across the bridged and only a handful of the mercs remained. Miranda and Jacob were currently hunkered down near the Blue Suns command center. They figured that it was the best place to hit first with the hope of getting Tarak, but he managed to slip away and get the gunship before they could get to him. After some time, they had a moment where no one entered the area.

"Think the coast is clear?" Jacob asked

"Not sure, but most of them are focused on Archangel and Shepard, we should be able to take sneak out and deal with any stragglers." Miranda answered.

Once they left the command center, they were confronted by 4 freelancers and 2 suns, led by the batarian Salkie. Jacob used his biotics to light 2 freelancers into the air allowing Miranda to shoot them from her cover. Miranda than used her biotics to grab a blue sun and slam him into the ground. One of the freelancers get too close and Jacob breaks cover to fire his shotgun at the mercs head, obliterating it.

Salkie and the last two opened fired on Jacob but he activated his barrier and deflected the bullets. Miranda fired an overload at the mercs and hit the last freelancer, shorted out his shields and finished him off with a shot to the head. When the last two needed to reload Jacob biotically pulled them into the air and used his shotgun to kill the helpless mercs.

Just before they could catch their breath more shots were fired, and Jacob got in front of Miranda to pull up a barrier. Now there were over 3 dozen mercs about to swarm the duo, all composed of stragglers from the Eclipse, Blood Pack and Blue Suns.

"That a lot of stragglers. (sigh) Where's Frankenstrike when you need him." Jacob commented.

Neither Swampfire to Kickin Hawk showed up to assist as planned. Shepard told her that Magister was unresponsive, but if they were in the area they would have jumped in by now. "Guess will have to hold out until Shepard and the others can find another way to escape." She said to Jacob.

"I was really hoping the Samaritans would show up by now." Jacob commented, disappointed that the 'Superheroes' were a no show.

"Alright, I'll throw couple inferno grenades to distract them so we can head back for cover than will use our biotics to-"

A green beam came from the direction of Archangels hideout and obliterated all but half of the mercs, who were in the back of the group. All that's left of the front of the group were charred corpses.

When Miranda and Jacob looked up, they were stunned by what they saw

"What the hell?" Jacob said

The gunship hovered above the group, but now it was black with green circuitry. Miranda recognized the circuitry from on of the videos, even the giant circle in middle of the bloody cockpit was the same. What stood out was the hourglass symbol above the 'eye'.

"A Samaritan?" She asked. How was that even possible? Their transportation technology was unbelievable, but this... How did they take control of the gunship and modify it so fast? "_This was incredible_!" Miranda though to herself.

It made a frowning expression as it turned its 'eye' to the remaining thirteen mercenaries. The turrets at the bottom of the cockpit where large and instead of bullets they fire laser blast that incinerated the remainder of the mercenaries (half tried shooting it while the other half tried running) None survived.

Once the mercs were dead, it focused its 'eye' on the duo who stood there dumbfounded by what they were looking at, but what happened next made both their jaws drop (Miranda only slightly dropped her jaw, as she tried to hide her facial expressions)

As the gunship landed in front of them it began to shrink and melt into a liquid state…" What the…" was all Miranda could say as the liquid began to rise and take a humanoid shape, turning solid as well.

What stood in front of them was a humanoid with a round black head with no facial features except for the green circle in the middle of its face. The front part of its body, legs and under areas of its long arms were white. Its back was black and covered in the green circuity pattern. The hourglass symbol was on its chest.

"Holy shit." Jacob said in amazement

One would mistake this being for a form of advanced geth, with the single 'eye' and the technological appearance. Was this a synthetic from the Samaritan's home world? Tt wore the symbol so it must belong to them. Or...could it actually be Magister, the supposed leader? Well, it saved them so Miranda might as well ask.

"Magister?" Miranda asked.

The being looked at them for a moment before the familiar green flash went off forcing the duo to cover their eyes. When they looked back, they were expecting the being to be simply gone like with Frankenstrike…while the big was gone, someone else was in its place. Now standing before them was the Samaritan Feedback who looked at the duo with a friendly smile.

"Hey guys, good to see you again, sorry it took so long to come help, the mercs were relentless." He said in a manner that sounded like he met them before. But they never met him until now. If he said Frankenstrike told him about them that be one thing. And what exactly happen to the synthetic being?

"Wait you were in the hideout?" Miranda asked incredulously and Feedback nodded.

"But we never saw you pass the bridge, where did you come from?" Jacob asked, just as confused.

Feedback than raised his right hand.

"Okay, okay, easy guys" Feedback said calmly "I know this is a lot to take in and I'll answer all your questions soon, but first you might wanna call Shepard, they probably cleared all the mercs inside by now." He suggested.

* * *

**Samaritan**

Feedback watched as Miranda and Jacob got in touch with Shepard and told them the situation at the merc base. Eventually they hanged up and turned their attention back to Feedback.

"Shepard called in a shuttle to take us back to our ship" Miranda said but still seemed a little stunned by his entrance and big reveal. "Will you be joining us?" She asked.

Feedback thought about what he was going to say. He did already decide that he was going help. After what the Collectors did last time they were here, he couldn't just let them do it to other humans. And if what Garrus said about the reapers were true than working with Shepard might be his best chance to find a way of stopping them. No one else but Shepard, Garrus and a handful of others believed the reapers existed, and there was noting Feedback could've done on his own. While working with Cerberus was not ideal, it was the best chance he had at finding a way to take them down before they could attack.

"Yeah, I'll come along, I've been meaning to take a trip of the galaxy anyway." Feedback said with a cheery tone.

"Alright let's head to the bridge and we'll meet Shepard in the middle. Miranda said.

Jacob and Feedback nodded and followed her to the middle of the bride that was still littered with merc corpses.

"_I'm really glad I kept Jonn from signing up_." He didn't see his body, so he didn't just come here afterwards, he's probably getting drunk at Afterlife.

The shuttle came into view and it landed in the middle of the bridge. Shepard and Zaeed had Garrus with his arms over their shoulders and carried him to the shuttle as the doors opened. Jacob went up to give them a hand with loading Garrus.

Feedback approached the shuttle with Miranda as they finished strapping in Garrus. And now Shepard and the others had all their eyes on Feedback. If Feedback was in his original form, he'd be sweating up a storm right now.

While Feedback did reveal a secret to Garrus, he didn't share ALL his secrets. He told some truth and some…not so much. Well, telling someone he was a shapeshifter was big, but telling the rest of his story was out of the question. The king of things that happened to him back home aren't as common here, and the last thing he needed was to overload someone's mind with the entire truth.

"_Would they even believe the entire truth_?" He thought to himself "_Or would they just think I'm crazy and was driven mad by my powers."_ He seen what this power can do to a mind, a certain energy absorbing individual came to mind and he was crazy after absorbing the watch's power.

"Aw man, this is going to be tough." He muttered to himself as he approached the shuttle. Shepard looked at him in his single eye and Feedback knew the obvious message "I know, I know. I've got a lot of explaining to do." He said wearily as he got in the shuttle. "_Is it too late to turn back_?" he thought as the shuttle lifted off the ground. Shepard didn't say a word the whole ride and never took her eyes off of Feedback. It sent a chill down his spine "_It's too late…"_

* * *

Author: I got a little sloppy at the end but i managed to get this part over with. I'm sure none of you were surprised that everyone found out Ben was a shapeshifer. However, that's only one of his secrets. He's still got a few more to keep. The question is when will he be honest about everything?

Telling someone your from another universe is a lot to take in, especially in an universe where that kind of thing doesn't happen as often as in the Ben 10 Universe.

I didn't reveal the names of the other Mass Effect transformations because I'm still unsure if I want to use the names I have for them. If anyone wants to pitch names, I'd considered using any that sound good. Not all the transformations are biotics, it depends on who he got the samples from. Some are just from random unnamed individuals, while others are from specific people in Omega. He collects more as he travels the galaxy.

As for other Ben 10 Characters. I have four bad guys planned to appear later. You already know one if you read the stories description. More might make an appearance. As for allies. I'm thinking either one, two or three as the maximum. Why? Because he had Max and Gwen in original series. Gwen and Kevin in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien. Rook in Omniverse. I know that occasionally others would join up on adventures, but these were the main teammates.

Why am I waiting to explain how Ben got in the Mass Effect Universe? Because I'm not hundred percent sure which scenario I want to use. I have a list of scenarios that could have sent him there and this way gives me time to decide how I want this to go. And I wanted to get to the part where he meet Shepard immediately so I did this way, and he'll just tell how he got here later. I was thinking of Arrow when I made that decision. They showed Green Arrow as a bad ass in the first episode and used flashbacks throughout the series to explain how he got to that point.

Questions for readers:

Should I put Kaiden or Ashley in this story?

Who should be Shepard's love interest?

Should I give Ben the Leviathan Transformation earlier than the DLC (like he finds a fossil somewhere or he gets taken into the past by Paradox and collects a sample)?


	4. Chapter 4

Author: Sorry this took so long, it takes awhile to think up the dialogue. So as you can see from the title, this chapter is about Shepard officially recruiting Ben. Ben also says goodbye to people he's meet on Omega and deals with some problems. There isn't any action in this one, sorry. This is me making up for the lack of dialogue in previous chapters. I also fixed previous chapters of spelling and other minor mistakes...to the best of my ability. I also changed the time from six months to ten months, because you know, keeping the number ten theme going.

-I also narrowed done the scenario that brought the alternate Ben to this universe, I'll reveal more later.

-No, Paradox was not involved in it. He'll only have one or two appearances, mainly to explain things and answer questions. He doesn't get involve unless someone like Eon gets involved in the conflict.

Thank you all for the reviews, hope you continue to enjoy!

I do not own anything related to **Mass Effect** or **Ben 10. **This is just for fun!

* * *

Ch 4. Partial Explanation. Goodbye to Omega

**Samaritan- Normandy**

Feedback stared out from the side window of the shuttle, trying to avoid eye contact with everyone, since all but Garrus are still staring at him. Taking in the fact that he is a shapeshifter and that all those other aliens were just one guy. He could feel Shepard's eyes on him as he knows that she is still trying to figure him out. The only thing saving him from questions is the shuttle ride, but once they land and get Garrus bandaged up, he'll have to talk.

Now, he is prepared with a cover story after revealing himself to Garrus, but now he's wondering if he should do it again or just come clean with everything.

"_Yeah, saying I'm from another universe off the bat is a good start to a conversation."_ Feedback sarcastically thought. He doubted they would believe him, because from what he could tell, traveling to other universes is not a thing here as it is back home.

Eventually the ship came into view, the Normandy, only it was bigger than the one in the vids. Looks like they made some upgrades since the first ship. Feedback couldn't help but be impressed.

"Joker, we're back, open up the hanger doors." Shepard said into her comm.

["Roger that commander."] Came the reply of the man she called Joker.

Eventually the shuttle made its way into the hanger and landed. The cargo hold was filled with crates and other supplies. Shepard got on Garrus's left while Jacob was on his right and helped lift him up and exit the shuttle. Miranda and Zaeed exited next and Feedback stepped out last. Shepard turned her head to address Miranda.

"Take Zaeed and…" Shepard starts and looks at Feedback for a moment "…Samaritan to the comm room, while we take Garrus to the med bay."

"Yes Commander" Miranda replied as the group made their way across the bay. "I'd imagine you'll want Mordin in the comm room as well?" She asked.

"Yeah, this is going to be a long talk." Shepard said glancing back at Feedback who was trying to keep his cool. "Jacob, can you get Mordin after we drop off Garrus?" she asked Jacob.

"Can do Commander." The soldier answered.

Feedback to a glance around the hanger as they entered the elevator "_Look a like a good place to set up shop."_ It was large and it doesn't look an area where most of the crew would socialize and he figured he wouldn't be in the way of any who performed duties down here as long as he takes up a small space in the corner.

"EDI" Shepard said "Deck 3 please."

"Yes Commander" the A.I. replied and the elevator moved. A few seconds went by in awkward silence…

"So…I see the new Normandy's bigger than last one" Garrus commented, probably wanting to break the tension between Feedback and Shepard.

"Cerberus made modifications to the design of the original Normandy layout" Miranda stated "but it still retains its stealth capabilities"

"Something tells me I am going to have take a look at the cannons" Garrus replied, making Shepard smirk.

"I can show you around the weapons area later on if you want to take a look." Jacob offered

"Um…Sure" Garrus responds "Appreciate it." He finished.

Feedback could tell Garrus was just as uncomfortable with being near Cerberus agents as he was. Even if he got past this little hiccup with Shepard and his secret, he would still have to deal with the difficulties of being surrounded by Cerberus crewman. Feedback sighed as thought about

"Hope there's bar on this ship" Zaeed stated "Gotta feeling we're gonna need it."

* * *

**Shepard-Normandy/Medbay**

"Really Garrus" Chakwas scolded as she patched up the turian "Not back for five minutes and I already have to stitch you back up."

"Heh" Garrus chuckled "Nice to see you to doctor."

"Yes" Chakwas said with a smile" Not the ideal reunion, but I am happy to see and old shipmate and friend"

Shepard stood by the door with a smile as she watched Karin patch up Garrus. She'll admit, she was mad at the Samaritan for not telling her his _little _secret, but so far, he's off to a good start to making up for it by saving Garrus.

"Commander" Came the voice of EDI "Operative Taylor and Doctor Solus have arrived at the comm room. All requested personal are awaiting your arrival"

Shepard sighed "_Time to get answers_" she thought "Thanks EDI, tell them I'm on my way." She ordered

"Yes Shepard." EDI replied as she logged out.

Shepard was about to leave until…

"While I am happy to be on a ship with some of my favorite humans" Garrus spoke up while Chakwas treated him. "I have to say I am a little worried to find you guys with Cerberus…I've heard some bad things about them these past few years. I mean, worse than the usual bad things I hear. To say I'm worried about you is an understatement." He had a turian look of concern on his bandaged face.

It was a relief to Shepard. He wasn't mad or giving Shepard a hard time about this situation. He just looked at her as a friend that needed help and she welcomed his help, especially now. She gave a wary smile to the turian.

"That's why I'm glad you're here Garrus." Shepard said, "If I'm walking into hell, I want someone I trust at my side."

"You realize this plane has me walking into hell too?" He gives her a questioning look that made it hard for her to tell what he was thinking. He then smirked "Heh…Just like old times"

Shepard smirked "Thanks Garrus" She turns to Chakwas who finished with Garrus "He gonna be okay?" She asked.

"Not to worry dear." The doctor said in a motherly voice." A few days of bedrest and he'll be up and about and finding ways to come back here with more bullet wounds and facial scars."

"Hey, ladies love scars" Garrus humorously said "But seriously how bad is it?"

Shepard lightly laughed "Hell Garrus you were always ugly. Slap some face paint on that and no one will notice."

Garrus laughed but winced "Ow don't make me laugh, (pained laugh), my face still hurts."

"I'll give something for that" Chakwas said as she looked to Shepard "You better get going to your meeting Shepard, our friend here needs his rest."

Right, the elephant in the room that still needs addressing. "Before I do, Garrus?" She asked and the turian turned to her. "How much did our friend tell you about himself."

Garrus pondered in thought for a minute "Its probably better if you hear it from him first, it's hard to believe otherwise" He said "We can compare notes after your talk with him, but I can vouch for him on this, he's a good guy and a good friend. So, try and go easy him. Okay Gwen?"

Hearing him use her first name is a rarity and only says it when he really wants to make a point. While she understands this whole situation was chaotic, it still would have been good to know before we went into a blood bath. But for Garrus, she'll try and take it easy and not turn the meeting into an interrogation.

"(Sigh) Alright Garrus." She responded, "Take care" She said as she walked out the door.

* * *

**Garrus- Normandy/MedBay **

Garrus watched her leave and wondered how well that conversation is going to go. He might have convinced to be a little less tense with her questioning, but he still probably wouldn't want to be the shapeshifter right now. But than his mind wondered to something that's been at the back of his mind. Her scars. What kind scar are they? And why does she look like she was just risen from the dead? She didn't go into any specifics, but there wasn't much time for that earlier. Than it just hit him that he is in a room with the one person he could ask. He's afraid to find out the answer but he doesn't; want to be in the dark abut the crap that Shepard's been forced to go through with Cerberus.

"Excuses me Doctor?" the turian spoke to Chakwas. She turned to look at him from her desk.

"No need to be formal with me Garrus, we are friends" She said with a motherly smile.

"Right doc-I mean Karin heh, I just wanted to ask you something…about Shepard."

Chakwas raised an eyebrow, but than changed to a knowing look with a hint of sadness in her expression "I take it you noticed her scars? I mean you obviously did before, but now that you have a moment to rest and think…"

"Yeah, it's just has me wondering…" Garrus heisted "What happened to her exactly?"

Chakwas signed "It's going to be hard for you to believe."

"I've spent almost a year with a shapeshifting superhero and before that, took part on a mission that involved stopping genocidal machines" Garrus sadly smirked as he continued "I think I'm pass the point of not believing anything."

"Very well Garrus" Chakwas spoke "After I was reassigned, I received a message from an unknown contact telling me that Gwendolyn Shepard was not dead like we believed she was…"

* * *

**Samaritan- Normandy/Comm Room**

"So, I've been teaming up with one freaky guy instead of seven this entire time" Zaeed asked curiously. Feedback, Zaeed and Miranda are waiting for Shepard and the other to arrive.

"Yeah" Feedback responded "It really throws people off when they think their dealing with more than one person"

"I have to say I'm quite impressed with how you covered your tracks." Miranda stated. Looks like she's got over the surprises part and jumped to curiosity and inquisitive parts of this revelation. "You've managed to avoid being caught transforming on video for almost an entire year and mask your presence to the point where your only considered a myth to most of the galaxy." She said with a slight praise in her tone "I assume your technological form had a hand in covering your digital footprint?"

"I call that form Upgrade" Feedback back answered "I used his abilities with the abilities of another form you haven't seen to hack all the cameras on Omega and delete any evidence of me changing and to monitor the station no matter where I am."

"(Zaeed Chuckles) So you're the literal goddamn eyes and ears of Omega, bet Aria would love like to know that."

Feedback mentally groaned at the thought of the Queen of Omega "You don't know the half of it…" he muttered.

The doors opened and entered Jacob and Mordin, the salarian looked and the Samaritan and gave him a friendly and then spoke

"Ah Feedback. Good to see. Haven't seen you in sometime. Wondered where you were during the plague. Heard you were injured, but you seemed to make a quick recovery" Mordin started to go off with his fast-taking nature. He then gained a questioning look "Curious. I was not aware of you having regeneration capabilities. No. Possible technology that heals you rapidly? No. Would have used it prior to the rescue mission. But than what happened prior that prevented you from…"

"Easy there Mordin" Feedback said as he held up his right hand "I promise I'll answer all your questions as soon as Shepard get here."

"Hope your ready" Zaeed said "I can tell that woman gotta a mean side that she saves for certain occasion's like this"

Feedback audibly groaned to this, remembering how she fought, and how brutal she could be with those that pissed her off. Zaeed laughed and Miranda had a ghost of a smile.

"How's Garrus by the way?" Feedback asked Jacob, hoping to change the topic, and because he was greatly concerned for his friend's wellbeing."

"Doctor Chakwas says it's just a few flesh wound and some burns" Jacob answered "He should be up and about in a few days. Don't worry he's in good hands."

Feedback was relieved to hear this and that the doctor was someone that could be trusted. Garrus told him about Doctor Karin Chakwas, she sounds like the mother of the Normandy, who always checks up on the crew and gives them a piece of her mind when they do something reckless and get injured. "_She sounds like someone mom would love to hang- "_Feedback shook the thought away. No. Not the time. He can't bear to think abut them now, at least not yet.

Feedback stayed quiet for a time while the others chatted, eventually the door open and all eyes where on Commander Shepard as she walked into the comm room. Jacob saluted and Commander nodded and said, "At ease" and so he did. Feedback was on the end of the table near the entrance, Shepard was on the other end. Mordin and Zaeed were on Feedbacks left while Miranda and Jacob where on his right. Shepard than looked at Mordin "Professor, I assume you're satisfied with the lab?"

"Yes. Well equipped. Numerous samples for me to test. Should have no difficult with finding solution for Seeker swarm paralysis." Mordin answered with an excited tone, he was clearly looking forward to the challenge.

"Good to hear." Shepard said and then turned her attention to Feedback with an look that was hard to decipher, it wasn't angry or emotionless, whatever it was it sent a chill down Feedback spin, eventually everyone turned their attention to the stare down between Feedback and the Commander, the only one who didn't know why was Mordin who hasn't been made aware yet of the fact that Feedback was all the Samaritans. Well, he was about to find out, Feedback had a feeling the salarian will pounce on him with questions of his won once Shepard is done.

"So, Feedback, do you have and actual name beside Samaritan that we can call you?" the Commander asked. Everyone turned to Feedback awaiting his response. Well, here he goes.

"...Tetrax…Tetrax Shard" Feedback lied. He thought about it and decided that the whole truth was just too much too handle, so he'll tell them an edited version…at least for now. And as for his name, well he was sure that given the circumstances, the petrosapien bounty hunter (and his friend) wouldn't mind that Feedback was using his name.

Everyone seemed surprised to hear him give out his 'real' name, he's only ever told Garrus this since he caught on to his secret first. Shepard eyes showed more interest and inquisitiveness.

"What's your true form?" Sheared asked. Everyone's eyes were glued to the conductoid who kept a calm demeanor even though he was nervous deep inside. In response to her question, a green flash engulfed the room and forced everyone to cover their eyes. When they looked back, in the place of Feedback was Diamondhead.

"This is my true form; my species are called petrosapiens." He answered/lied.

He could see that everyone was surprised to see his transformation even though most of them have seen it in action. Except for Mordin who looked at the petrosapien. He was disturbingly quiet, which is something very out of character for the former STG scientist. But his eyes were wide open from surprise. Diamondhead could hear the gears turning from here, he figured Mordin was waiting for Shepard to finish her questions before asking his own. Speaking of Shepard, she was the only one who didn't look as surprised as before, it seems that she's already accepted this. Probably talked to Garrus before hand to mentally prepared herself for this.

"Where are you from? We sure haven't seen anyone like you in the Milky Way" Shepard asked.

"That's because my home planet, Petropia, is located in far corners of what you call the Andromeda Galaxy." Diamondhead answered/lied.

**Shepard-Normandy/Comm Room**

"You're from the Andromeda Galaxy?" Miranda asked in surprise

That answer surprised Shepard, and she could tell that the others were having the same reaction.

"Well he obviously ain't from around these parts of the universe" Zaeed replied, Shepard could tell he was surprised but didn't have that much of a reaction. After 10 months of working with the Samaritan he probably just used to be surrounded by strangeness at this point.

Shepard looked at Mordin, was disturbingly quiet, she was sure he was waiting for the bigger question to be answered, like how he just went from Feedback to Diamondhead. She could vaguely hear him muttering to himself with words incomprehensible to the spectre.

"So, what are you doing in the Milky Way?" Jacob asked

"How did you get here?" Miranda asked. "Is your technology that advanced?"

The Samaritan kept his cool as he was given more questions.

"I don't know how I found myself in the Milky Way." Tetrax answered "We don't have any transportation capable of making a long journey like that. One minute I'm on my home planet…the next minute I'm on Omega, with no clue what happened"

The he hesitated on the last part, leading Shepard to suspect that he did known how it happened he just wasn't going to tell them. While she would have called him out on that, there was something in his eyes that made her stop. They were pupil-less, but they had the look that told her that whatever happened was not good and he didn't want to talk about almost like…like how she was after Mindoir, when she barely spoke about it when she was younger and would break down whenever someone mentioned it. She shook herself from the thought and focused on the current discussion. She decided to leave him alone on how he got here for now but would ask him about it later.

"Are you a natural shapeshifter or is that part of your technology" Shepard asked to change the topic. Besides, this was the bigger question she knew everyone wanted to know. She heard him say something about a device when he started to rapidly shapeshift.

'**Tetrax' Samaritan- Normandy/Comm Room**

Well, he knew he this question was coming. Obviously. But he's not sure about revealing this in front of Cerberus personnel, who would know doubt reveal this to the rest of the organization. Diamondhead was use to sleeping with one eye open, but if he revealed this and joined Shepard, he wouldn't have a giant space station to hide in and would have to be on guard more so than usual. The last thing he wanted was to be strapped down to a dissection table somewhere in a Cerberus laboratory. Although they probably would try to regardless of what he said or not. Though Jacob seemed more friendly than what he expected from someone in a Cerberus uniform, and he could tell it wasn't an act. But Miranda, she came off as cold and calculating, if she was ordered by the man in charge of Cerberus to capture him, he had a feeling she would, but there something else about her that seemed off from his initial femme fatal description, he couldn't place is but maybe there was more to her than a devoted follower of Cerberus.

And Shepard made it clear that she's not part of Cerberus and that she only here because they were the ones who saved her and gave her the means to travel. Garrus told Diamondhead how she was always at odds with the Council and the Alliance because only a few believed her about the Reapers while the rest written her off as a soldier who suffers from PTSD. But they pretend they weren't terrible to her when she saves their asses from Sovereign and the geth and act grateful like they never said anything bad about her. While he may not trust Cerberus with this information, he did trust Shepard with it, hopefully she can keep them at bay and convince them to keep their dissection tools to themselves.

After a little mental debate Diamondhead sighed and pointed to the dial on the left part of his chest. Everyone's eyes were now focused to the strange symbol they had no clue about.

"This is called the Omnitrix." Diamondhead stated, "This is a device that contains the DNA samples of every sapient species from my galaxy and can transform my appearance and very DNA into that of these beings, giving me access to their natural abilities, as if I was one of them from the start."

**Shepard **

Shepard was just as stunned as everyone else was now. "_So that explains the symbol_" She thought to herself. But she still couldn't believe such a small device had the power to alter a person down to their very DNA. She couldn't even begin to understand how that could possibly work. Compared to everyone else in the room, her physical reaction was minor, when a Prothean beacon implants images of slaughter and genocide in your head, you become willing to believe anything. But still, this seems beyond even what's she seen with the Sovereign and Saren.

"Fascinating…" she heard Mordin mutter.

Oh boy

"Alteration to size and shape! Physiology completely overwritten! Natural capability swapped along with appearance. Even alteration to voice…" The Doctor began to go off as he got near Tetrax and began to examine his entire body. Tetrax looked uncomfortable with the close examination. Jacob and Zaeed were struggling to hold a snicker while Miranda tried to hide her smile. It seems the floodgates in Mordin's head finally broke and just couldn't hold all the thoughts and questions that began to overflood his mind after witnessing the transformation. "Initial samples never showed any similarities. All evidence indicated separate entities provided samples. Energy to completely rewrite genetic structure and very fabric of DNA strands must be massive! Power source must be self-sustaining. Unless you have means of powering device? Such technological marvel must have taken centuries to perfect. How were you able to construct such a device…?"

"Alright, easy Mordin" Shepard said and lightly chuckled as Mordin stopped his examination. "Let's give him some room to breath so he can answer most… well some of those questions." She finished.

Tetrax gave an appreciative nod to Shepard as Mordin became calm but was livider than before even as he quieted down. Everyone else eventually calmed down and refocused on the diamond being. Tetrax sighed in relief before he spoke again.

"To answer your last question Professor, I didn't build the Omnitrix" Tetrax Answered

"Then who built the Omnitrix?" Miranda asked, she was clearly more interested in learning about the device now that she knows the source of his power.

"Azmuth the First Thinker, a Galvan from the planet Galvan Prime"

"Galvan?" Jacob asked.

Tetrax responded with another flash of green light, once again blinding everyone in the room. When Shepard looked back, Tetrax was gone.

"Tetrax?" Shepard asked.

"I'm down here!" Came the response from a high-pitched voice. Everyone looked around for a moment until a small being jumped onto the end of table where Tetrax stood. This made everyone look at him stupefied. In place of the crystal humanoid was a five-inch bipedal frog-like humanoid with grey skin and large eyes with rectangular pupils. He wore a white jump suit with a thin vertical black line going down the suit, and a large vertical black line was between his eyes. The omnitrix was now located on his back. When he blinked his eyelids were horizontal.

"This my friends, is a Galvan, I call myself Grey Matter in this form." The creature known as Grey Matter stated with a smile and hands on his hips.

Shepard had to try hard not to laugh to the high-pitch voice, if Tali was here, she'd gush and go "AWW" the moment she saw this form.

"This one doesn't look like much of a fighter" Zaeed said as he already broke from his stupor.

"Yeah I can see him being used for stealth operations." Jason said "But what exactly can this one does…"

"Amazing!" Mordin said as he came over to Tetrax's end of the table and kneeled to get a better look at his new form. "Species appears amphibious like salarian. Based on gills on side of face. Physical structure suggests greater flexibility with bones. Plus, smaller size, making it possible to reach spaces that most species cannot. Sharp teeth show some sort of predatory diet…"

"Actually professor we Galvan are insectivores, although I have never tried eating an insect since I'm never in this form long enough to consume such nutrients and proteins, and I am also capable of digesting other non-meat based food products..." Tetrax began to explain in what could be described as a more intellectual tone and began to have a conversation with the professor that no one but apparently Miranda could follow. Shepard and the rest were just stumped as the two apparent intellectuals continues to discuss Galvan physiology. One thing was clear, this transformation was incredibly smart.

"Ahem" Came from Shepard. Deciding to interrupt before this went on for too long. Tetrax turned his attention to Shepard.

"(lightly chuckles and he scratches the back of his head sheepishly) Apologies Commander, I got a little carried away, it's been a while since I've had a stimulating conversation with someone who's vast intellect can match my own." Tetrax said.

"Thank you" came the appreciative reply from Mordin.

"Jesus Christ, I thought they never shut up." Zaeed muttered.

"He's basically a smaller Mordin" Jacob commented to Miranda, who tried not to look amused with the thought.

"So, who exactly is Azmuth?" Shepard asked. Getting the conversation back on track.

"Azmuth is one the greatest minds of my galaxy, as his title "First Thinker" implies and has been called the most intelligent being of three galaxies." Tetrax explained.

"Three galaxies?" Shepard asked incredulously. The others had similar reaction as to what this implied.

"He likes to mention that some would argue he's the smartest in five galaxies." Tetrax continued "But personally I think he brings that up just to blow his own horn. And people call me arrogant. Honestly, any bigger and his head will just explode…"

"Are you saying there are other confirmed galaxies with intelligent life?" Miranda asked who was trying to hold in her own surprise, but her widen eyes gave her away.

Tetrax broke from his rant and looked up to notice all eyes were on him with disbelief.

"Uh…"

'**Tetrax'**

"_Crap_" Grey Matter mentally thought and cursed himself for going off on a tangent and revealing more information than he should have. He began to sweat nervously as his superpowered brain tried to think of a way out of this predicament.

"Uh…well…I mean…that's the rumor that goes around the Andromeda. No one has contacted anyone outside our galaxy, but they say Azmuth has, although he's never confirmed nor denied this. He just lets people guess because he finds it humorous…of course, personally, I think he just likes to feed his own ego. (Nervously laughs)" Grey Matter explained, managing to think of an explanation that would deter more questions on other galaxies.

So far it seemed to have kept them from questioning further, though the looks from Shepard and Miranda told him that they didn't quite believe him, but they let it be for now.

"So how did you acquire the Omnitrix?" Miranda asked.

"It actually was an accident, believe or not." Grey Matter stated

"At this point, I'm ready to believe anything." Zaeed Commented

"Back on Petropia, I was on a trip around the planet with my Grandfather and cousin when it happened." Grey Matter Explained." I was exploring the wilderness of my home planet when I notice a shooting star in the sky, only it wasn't a shooting star. How could I tell? Because it unexpectedly changed its trajectory and aimed for my location, smashed into the ground and came close to hitting me in the process. Upon closer examination of the newly created crater, I discovered a pod of some sorts was driven in the ground. As I got closer it opened to reveal a strange device with and hourglass symbol" Grey Matter said as he pointed to the dial on his back.

"Why did it suddenly aim for you?" Jacob asked.

"Well, the omnitrix was meant to be delivered to my grandfather" Grey Matter continued "And was programmed to only respond to his DNA, but unforeseen events forced it off course and it looked for the closest genetic match it could find, which was me, his grandson. So, when I got too close, it latched itself onto me and fused itself with my DNA and becoming a part of my very being. And no, it doesn't come off" Grey Matter said and turned to face Mordin and Miranda. Grey Matter knew the former wanted to know because the scientist in him compels him to ask, while the latter merely wants information to share with her superior. "Its power utilizes alien DNA, which binds to the hosts own genetic structure. It cannot simply be removed like taking off a hand." Grey Matter quoted the real Tetrax as he explained. "So, this puppy stays with me, and on me, no matter what." He said as he looked at Miranda sternly, who did not show any facial expression that confirmed or denied his suspicions.

"Why was it meant for your grandfather?" Shepard asked, probably wanting to keep Grey Matter from starting something. And it worked. He turned to her.

"My grandfather's profession was intergalactic law enforcement before he retired, similar to your galaxies Spectre's, the best translation of their name into your language is Plumbers." Grey Matter

"Plumbers, seriously?" Jacob questioned.

"Yes, as in they do the jobs no one else wants to do, and they face the threats that could invade and destroy worlds if left unchecked. And my grandfather was the best out there." Grey Matter said proudly as he mentioned his grandfather. "He saved our world from the most infamous warlord in our galaxy and became known as a hero throughout the known worlds." Grey Matter looked at Shepard and smiled "Why you could say he was our galaxy's Shepard."

**Shepard**

Shepard smiled at hearing Tetrax's enthusiasm as he spoke about his grandfather and found it funny that he called his grandfather their version of her. And she could tell by the quiet chuckle from Zaeed and Jacob that they were amused as well, and she subtly rolled her eyes at them.

"So, seeing how the omnitrix wasn't coming off me anytime soon." Tetrax continued "My grandfather decided to teach me everything he knew about being a Plumber and helped me learn how to use the Omnitirx and the abilities of all my transformations and I eventually became what you would call a superhero on my home planet." Tetrax said as he made a superhero pose.

Now Shepard couldn't help but chuckle a little. No wonder he said being a hero was his job when they first met. Refocusing on the represent, she figured there was more stories and explanation for him to tell but they were on a tight schedule they needed to get back to preparing for the suicide mission, and they needed to get the Normandy moving. Besides she could ask him more during the trip, but now came the important question. Will he come with them? While she was upset at first about him hiding the fact that he was all the Samaritans, but he did make up for it by keeping his promise and keeping Garrus safe, so she'll let it go for now. She can talk to him about that later, provided he decides to tag along.

"Well, we can hear more about your stories later." Shepard stated as everyone looked at her but right now her focus was on the small bipedal frog. "You know about the Collectors. Can I also assume Garrus told you about the other threat we face?" She asked Tetrax.

"The Reapers? Yes", Tetrax answered. "Garrus told me of Sovereign and his plan to bring the rest of his kind to the galaxy to harvest and exterminate all organic life. You think the Collectors are connected to the Reapers?" Tetrax asked.

"Yes, dozens of human colonies have disappeared and no evidence of who was responsible was ever left behind." Shepard explained "Until recently, we found video recordings of the latest colony to go dark and discovered that the Collectors were behind the abductions. Why they do it, we don't know. But we can't ignore what's happen and need to do everything we can to put a stop to these abductions. So, our current mission is to gain resources and recruit the most dangerous individuals in the galaxy in preparation for a launch on the Collector home world beyond the Omega 4 Relay. We're hoping that you'd be willing to help, it's not great odds but with you, they might be better, especially against the reapers" Shepard finished her summary of the situation, she can go into detail later, right now she gave him the highlights and hoped it was enough to convince him.

The frog humanoid made "hm" sound and put his hand to his chin as he took on a look of pondering. He was not doubt weighing his options. Everyone looked at him as they awaited his response. Eventually Tetrax gained a smile and walked across the table to Shepard and stood before her on the other end.

"I would be happy to offer my aid to you Commander Gwendolyn Shepard" Tetrax stated as he held out his right hand.

This brought a smile to Shepard's face. She reached out with her won hand on instinct but than wondered how to shake hands when he was small enough to stand on her palm. As she had her hand out in front of the small frog, Tetrax grabbed her index finger and shook it like he was shaking a hand. Shepard had to hold back a laugh at how comical this probably looked to the others. After a few seconds they ended their hand-or finger shake.

"Welcome aboard the Normandy Tetrax Shard" She said sincerely.

"Glad to be aboard Commander" Tetrax said with his own sincerity, but than his face took on a look of realization as if he forgotten something. "Oh, before we take off, there's something I have to pick up on Omega and there are a few people I need to talk to. I assure you it won't take me very long." Tetrax stated.

"Alright we can spare and hour" Shepard replied, beside there was someone she needed to talk to on Omega as well.

"Perfect!" Tetrax said as another green flash engulfed the room and blinded Shepard and the others yet again.

When she looked back, floating in the center of the room was the cloaked Samaritan Big Chill.

"Be back soon" Tetrax said in his eerie voice as he went transparent and phased through the floor. Leaving Shepard and the team alone in the comm room.

"Well…that happened" Zaeed commented

"So many questions. So many possibilities Must discuss this further upon his return." Mordin muttered, sounding like he was a little kid during Christmas.

"This mission definitely got more interesting" Jacob commented.

"Alright everyone." Shepard spoke up to the group. "I'm heading back to Omega for a few minutes. Be ready to take off within the hour."

"Where are you going" Miranda asked.

"Just need to have a little chat with someone" She vaguely answered.

"You don't want any of us to come with you?" Jacob asked.

"Nah, it wont take very long, beside I'm not going there to look for a fight, just to have a nice civil conversation…or what's close to a civil conversation on Omega." Shepard assured.

"Very well, Commander." Miranda accepted. "We'll have the ship ready to leave by the time you return, but we're available for assistance if you need it."

"Appreciate it Lawson." Shepard acknowledged, then addressed everyone. "Dismissed."

* * *

'**Tetrax'-Omega**

XLR8 speed through the crowds of Omega as he decided which people to see first before he went back to his hideout. His first stop was the home of the elderly human couple he saved the first time he showed up. XLR8 has been checking in on them from time to time to make sure they were safe, and so far, no one has tried to mess with them. He eventually found himself at their address and quickly ducked into an ally way. The familiar green flash engulfed him. In XLR8's place was 'Tetrax's' turian transformation, which he named Fenix (**A/N**: Shout out to **Wanderer3** for the name).

Fenix approached the door and knocked. A few movements later, the elderly woman, Rita answered the door and gave the turian a friendly grandmotherly smile.

"Fenix! It's been so long." She warmly greeted.

"Hello Rita" Fenix greeted "Sorry I haven't visited much lately, work as been non-stop."

"Oh, no need to apologize." She waved off his apology "Jake use to be away for months during his time in the military, I can understand not always being able to come over all the time. Please won't you come in for some tea, I've got that dextro-based tea brand stashed away just for your visits."

Fenix couldn't help but give a turian smile at the woman's kindness. It's one of the few things that made living on Omega bearable, he hated that he was here to say goodbye.

"I'd love too but…"

"Rita, who's at the door?" came the voice of Jake, the elderly Alliance veteran as he approached the door and his face took on a smile "Hey Fenix, its awhile hasn't it? How've you been?"

"I've been good. As good as one can be on Omega." Fenix said but his smile began to falter "Anyway, I was just stopping to say goodbye, I'm leaving for Palaven today." Fenix lied. The couples smile began to falter a little.

"Has something happened?" Rita asked concerned.

"Nothing bad." Fenix said "Just some family matters I need to attend to on Palaven. I started to talk to my father again, and…well it's a start, so I'm going home for a bit to see if I can patch things up." Fenix lied. Fenix has a cover story for most of the aliens forms he acquired in this universe, just in case people asked him about himself.

While the couple seemed sadden by the news, but they managed to keep a sad smile on their faces.

"Well I a sorry to hear that you have to go" Jake said, "But I get how important family is, and you only get one father, so might as well make the most of what you have." Jake said as he patted Fenix on the shoulder "Take care of yourself, alright kid?"

Fenix's smile returned as he nodded in appreciation "Appreciate it Jake. I won't know when I'll be back, but I promise to try and visit again as soon as I can." He said sincerely.

Rita than surprised Fenix with a hug "Take care of yourself, and don't worry, we'll be fine." She said as she released him from the hug "I hope everything goes alright with your family." She said with a smile "I'll save that tea for when you get back."

"Looking forward to it." Fenix replied as he gave Jake a handshake before he began to step away from the door "Take care now and try to stay out of trouble alright old timer" he said that last part to Jake.

The old man chuckles "No promises but I'll do my best" the old man responded.

"I'll make sure he keeps that promise" Rita said as she looked at her husband who gave her a cheeky smile.

They waved off the turian as he eventually turned into another section and was out of sight. The green flash than replaced Fenix with XLR8, who began to speed off back to his hideout.

After a few seconds, XLR8 found himself in the Doru District, the location where most of Omega's vital utility systems reside. He decided to set up shop here since he could always go Upgrade and Grey Matter here in case something every happens to vital systems like life support. Plus, there is rarely anyone here so XLR8 took it upon himself to be the caretaker of all the systems, anyone who came here to check on the systems always found themselves surprised to see all systems functioning. He eventually found the entrance into the ventilation system that was big enough for him crawl to inside. After a few moments he found himself in the dark corridor of the vent that contained his base of operations. To others is looked like a black box covered in green circuitry that lite up the dark vent system (was the size of a Companion Cube from Portal). XLR8 was debating on the next person he planned to talk to.

"She's probably busy on a job, or she is near her mother, who I like to avoid as much as possible. (sigh) It's not ideal, but I guess calling her is the best option." The Kineceleran said to himself.

**Narrator**

A green flash lite up the dark vent but faded, and only the light of the cubes green circuity partially illuminated the area. The only other thing visible was a cloaked and hooded unknown form curled up in darkness and leaning against the cube.

The begin activated their omni-tool

"Hope this is a good time" said a feminine voice (A/N: Ashley Johnson. Ex: Voice of Ellie from Last of Us, and Gwen from Alien Force/Ultimate Alien/Omniverse). And sent out a call. After a few seconds someone picked up.

["Hello?"] Came the voice of another feminine voice.

"Hey Liselle, its Cleo" the cloaked being now known as Cleo responded.

* * *

'**Tetrax'-Omega/Samaritan Hideout**

["Cleo!"] Liselle greeted Cleo with a relieved tone ["Where have you been? I haven't heard from you for days! I was starting to worry that you wore kidnapped by slavers."] she said with a worried tone.

"I'm fine" Cleo assured her friend "Sorry that I haven't been around lately, I've been a little busy with some personal stuff and I kind of lost track of time." She said sheepishly.

["At least leave a message before you go off and disappear"] she said in a slight scolding tone ["Are you okay? Where are you? Do you need me to pick you up?"] she asked concerned.

"No, no, I'm fine" Cleo assured her friend "I made it back to my place, I'm with…my other friends" Cleo finished with slight and unintentional bitter tone at the end. The last part seemed to have struck something in Liselle, as she sadly sighed.

[(sigh) Look I'm sorry about my mom. I didn't know about the bug until afterwards. I swear, I would never do anything hurt you and your friends…at least not on purpose."] Liselle said sincerely.

Cleo sighed under her hood. She knew that she shouldn't take her frustration out on Liselle, it's not her fault. Her mother has eyes and ears everywhere, and sometime even they aren't aware that they're her eyes and hears.

"I know, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to blame you." Cleo stated "It's not your fault. No offense, but your mom can be a real bitch."

[(chuckle) Yeah, she's not the easiest to be around sometimes, but she never treats me like shit, so I must be grateful for that. Though that doesn't mean I approve of everything she does. Like blackmailing your friends with whatever she has on them, speaking of, I know you can't tell me because 'it's not my secret to tell' and all but she won't tell me and it would help if I knew what she had on you guys."] Liselle finished.

"Sorry Liselle" Cleo said "Maybe some other time, but that's not why I called…I called to say goodbye"

["What do you mean?] Liselle asked confused.

"I'm going on a…trip with the others" Cleo explained "I don't know when I'll be back, but I promise I'll message you a lot. I'm sorry I'm saying goodbye like this, but I figure your moms got you and Paul on another job."

["Yeah, she's got us on Red Sand duty again. But don't worry about that. Should I be worried about you kiddo? I know that your friends are planning to go along with Shepard, so I assume this is the trip your talking about"] Liselle asked concerningly.

Crap. So much for keeping low key on what she was doing.

"No, it's nothing too dangerous…I mean it's no more dangerous than usual" Cleo chuckled, then continued "Look it's not going to be any different than what I do for them on Omega. Only now I'll be listening for information on other planets." Cleo explained

There was silence for a movement as the cloaked asari waited in the dark vent for Liselle's response. It's not like she could stop Cleo from going, but ever since they've meet, she's acted like a big sister whenever they hang out, guess being related to Aria doesn't mean she'll be exactly like her.

["Cleo…" Liselle started "…I can't stop you from going…but I want you to promise me that you'll be careful…okay kiddo."]

"Yes _mom" _Cleo sarcastically/jokingly said "I promise not to talk to strangers, or pick fights with krogan" The cloaked asari jokingly said with a cheeky tone.

["(chuckle) Good girl"] Liselle said in an amused tone. There was background chatter on Liselle's end of the call ["That was Paul, he says we got to back to it…he says hi by the way!"]

"Hi Paul!" Cleo said over the call.

[(light chuckle) Well…guess this is goodbye…be safe okay kiddo?"]

"…I will" Cleo said, "I promise."

["Okay…goodbye Cleo."]

"Bye Liselle" Cleo said as she hung up. Sometimes she can't believe that she's friends with Aria's daughter, considering the headache her mother is starting to become. Speaking of Aria.

"_I need to have a little chat with the Bitch Queen of Omega_" Cleo thought, that another struck her "I should probably visit Patriarch one last time too" Cleo said to herself as she remembered that she was the elder krogan's krantt, but with Omega's Blood Pack gone, there wasn't anyone threatening his life anymore.

"But first…I need to visit her one last time_"_ The cloaked asari could feel a blush on her face as she thought about the next person she intended to visit.

Another green flash engulfed the area and Cleo was replaced by the techno-organic being known as Upgrade as his green circuitry lit up his body. He touched the cube and the front side of it opened. Inside the cube was the workstation and living quarters that he uses as Grey Matter (A/N: it looks like the inside of the futurist Rusk Bucket from the Ben 10,000 episode, but with an Upgrade theme to it), in the center was a small red box with a blue ribbon on it. He picked it up and closed the Cube. Then he used his hand to absorb the cube into his being to store it away until he could set it up on the Normandy.

"Okay" (A/N: voice of David Sobolov. Voice of Shockwave in Transformers Prime. He is also the voice of Upgrade in the reboot series. While I'm not a big fan of the reboot, I did like the fact that Shockwave was Upgrade's voice. So, in this story Upgrade can switch between his regular voice and his Shockwave voice with a voice changer he absorbed) "You can do this" he said to himself "You've fought killer aliens, robots, mutants, cyborgs, crazy humans and every other kind of monster out there. This is a walk in the park for you" He said to himself.

After his pep talk, he climbed out of the vent, and was engulfed in a green flash. The black and blue blur that was XLR8 began to speed off once again.

* * *

'**Tetrax'-Omega/Near the entrance to the Gozu District**

XLR8 speed into a nearby ally and was engulfed in the green flash. Standing in his place was the poncho-wearing Quarrian helper. This form was named Fixit.

Fixit held the box in his hands as he entered the nearby apartment next to the entrance to the Gozu district/former quarantine zone. Looking at the entrance to the once quarantine zone reminded him of something, he needed check on Daniel to see if he's okay. But right now, "_You can do this. You can do this. You can do this_." Fixit thought to himself as he approached the front door. He hesitatingly brought his hand forward and began to knock on the door. "_Maybe this is the bad idea?"_ Fixit thought "_I can't even bring myself to use my human form for this. She only knows Fixit, she doesn't know me as…"_ Fixit mentally debated until someone finally answered the door. Standing before Fixit was a middle-aged woman with light skin, reddish-brown hair tied up into a bun, and grey/blue eyes.

"Fixit!" the woman greeted warmly "So good to see you again, where have you been? We started to worry about you." She asked

"Hey Diana" Fixit greeted as he hid the box behind his back. "Sorry I haven't been around much, being a repairman can get busy, especially when people fill up your schedule"

"Oh, no need to apologize" Diana assures "I know as well as anyone that Omega can be a tough place to survive in."

"So…uh…" Fixit stumbled with his words "_Come on, you can't back out now_" he mentally said to himself. "…is Nef home?" he asked nervously. He was glad he was wearing a helmet. Otherwise Diana would see the blush he feels spreading across his cheeks.

Unfortunately, Diana could read the quarrian like a book due to the stutter in his voice and his nervous movements and formed a knowing smile. "Yes, she's in her room like always, working on her sculptures" she than formed a teasing smile "You know, she mentions you a lot"

This made Fixit's eyes widen behind his helmet "R-Really?!" Fixit blurts out but than regains his composure while Diana chuckles, then speaks in a more layback tone "I mean relay, does she say anything in par…" he's interrupted by a door behind Diana opening. Coming out of the back room was a girl possibly around 18-19, with hair and eye color like Diana's, only her hair was not in a bun, and was shorter. This was Nef.

"Mom, do you know where one of my chisels are…" Nef stoped in the middle of her sentence as her eyes widen upon recognition of the quarrian talking with her mother. "Fixit!" she said joyfully, but than realized she said it a little to loud and blushed and quickly tried to recompose herself. "I mean…um…Fixit how are you…where you've been" she said rather shyly. Her right hand grabbing her left forearm in a nervous manner, a bit blush still on her face.

"H-Hey Nef! I …um…I've been busy" Fixit could feel the blush on his cheeks coming back and was grateful for the helmet "So uh…how are you?" he asked "_Smooth. Real Smooth_" he mentally said to himself.

"Oh I'm…good (light chuckle) yeah…um just working on my sculpture" Nef said nervously.

"Oh, that's good…um…" Now Fixit was struggling with the conversation. Especially since he knows that this will be their last conversation for quite a while. After a few moments of awkward silence.

"Oh, you know what, I think I did see you chisel in the other room. I'll just go get it." Diana made an excuse for herself to leave the room (Fixit used the distraction to put the box on the couch without Nef seeing it) giving the quarrian helper and the shy artist a moment alone. Although, they both knew that she was more than likely eavesdropping on the conversation like any other mother who's cautious about leaving their daughter alone with a boy.

"So how are the sculpture coming along?" Fixit manages to say without any nervousness in his voice. This encourages Nef to speak up as well as she dawns a small smile on her face.

"They are coming along better than I hoped" Nef said confidently and cheerfully "Actually, I've been given a couple offers from some galleries who say my work is 'fresh'" She said with pride and hope in her tone.

"Really? That's awesome!" Fixit said "See, I told you it could happen. Just needed to believe in yourself more." He stated.

"(chuckle) Okay, you were right, don't let is go to your head, its big enough as it is." Nef said humorously.

"Hey, just saying." Fixit amusingly said "When they ask what inspired you to share your work, you could give a shout out to certain awkward yet ruggedly handsome quarrian, who gave the confidence boaster you needed to take that leap of faith." He chuckled at the end.

"(Laugh) God, and that head of yours just keeps growing." Nef said through her laughter.

"It's all part of my charm" Fixit said though his own laughter. They both just laughed heartily for a few moments before calming down. Eventually though Fixit body language showed a sad posture and he sighed. He knew the happiness couldn't' last, especially now. As much as he didn't want to leave, he told himself that if was so she could do what she love without the threat of the end of the galaxy lurking around the corner. It sucks but he knew he couldn't stay.

"(sigh) Listen Nef, I have some news." Fixit started. Nef picked up on his tone and sadden body language and started to look concerned.

"What is it?" she asked worryingly. Fixit wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her the truth, the whole truth. But the truth about him and what he does is too much, and she didn't need that insanity in her life. So, for now, the lie would have to do.

"Well, you know, I grew up on Omega and never actually been on the Flotilla before." Fixit stared.

"Yeah, you said your parents settle here and raised you on Omega, right?" Nef asked.

'Yes" Fixit started "And after they…passed away…" Even mentioning his parent in a cover story was hard for the quarrian " I figured I had no other family, so I had no reason to go, back since I was never really part of the fleet…" Fixit sighed "But than Kenn messaged me a while back. You remember Kenn?" He asked.

"Yeah, you helped him settle his debt with that sleazebag and he went back on his pilgrimage." Nef remembered.

"Yeah, well, he messaged me. He said eventually went back to the flotilla…and for whatever reason he started to ask around to see if anyone knew my parents" Fixit sighed "Well he found out I have a do have family there…a grandfather, an uncle… and a cousin" He looked up and saw Nef's eyes were widened in surprise, he knew it would change as he said this next part. "Kenn said they want to meet me, but my grandfather can't move around very much due to his old age, and the others can't leave him since they don't want to burden anyone else with caring for him, so I…I'm…" Fixit looked down for a moment but eventually faced Nef again, who tried to look him in the eye through his helmet, her sadden expression told him that she knew what he was going to say "I'm going to go to the Flotilla to meet them." He finally said but then he started to get more nervous and began to stutter "But…it's not forever…I mean... they want to stay for a while…but, I mean…I'll still come back, I just…I just" Fixit began to mentally curse himself. He doesn't know why, but he was always twitchy and full of nervous ticks in this form, maybe he's claustrophobic and the isolation of being in the suit is driving him mad? He doesn't know. All he knows is that this is harder than he…

"Hey, hey, hey" Nef said as she approached him and out her right hand on the side of his face and her left hand on his shoulder in an attempted to soothe him. It calmed him down, but now he felt the blush on his face spreading.

"_Keelah, if it wasn't for the helmet, I would actually feel her touch right now" _He thought to himself "_If only I could tell her the truth, then I could show her my real face…_

"It's alright I get it" Nef assured him "I mean it will suck when you leave, your like…like my best friend…and..." She stopped herself and a bigger blush showed on her face and weakly chuckled "But hey, I get needing to see your family. And you said you would come back right?" she asked.

"Right" Fixit said without stutter, whatever happens, he was defiantly going to come back to see her, no matter what this universe throws at him.

"Then stop talking like this is goodbye for good" She said with a sad smile "It's just goodbye for now." She than hugged him. He stood there stupefied for a moment as he processed the fact that a girl's arms were wrapped around his neck. He really wished he met her in a form that didn't need a full body suit. He eventually broke his stupor and returned the hug.

"I promise I'll come back as soon as I can." He said as they were still hugging "And you know maybe get a free VIP pass to your art gallery when it becomes famous" He heard her chuckle "I mean it wouldn't be a party without the devilishly charming quarrian there by your side, telling all kinds of embarrassing stories about…" She than broke the hug while laughing and playfully punching him in the shoulder while he laughed as well.

"Smartass" She said while she continued the playful assault.

"I try" Fixit responded. He's been hanging with Garrus for too long, his humor is starting to rub off on the quarrian. "Besides, they're not that embarrassing. It was those moments that made me lo-Like! They made me LIKE hanging out with you!" He quickly said as Nef stopped as well. Keelah, he wanted to crawl into a hole and die right now, he was glad he has a helmet on right now. It was quiet for a moment but then Nef started to lightly laugh again.

"Well I lo-like hanging out with you too" She teased him with his slip up. If Fixit could see his face right now, it would probably be cherry red. She than quickly hugged him again. "Promise you'll keep in touch" she said quietly.

Fixit returned the hug "I promise" he quietly assured. Eventually they broke the hug and she walked him to the door.

"Take care Fixit" Nef said sincerely

"Thanks, you too Nef." Fixit responded but then turned to the direction Diana disappeared "Tell your mom I said bye and that I THANK her for the moment of privacy!" he said loudly. They could hear something being knocked over in the other room and both Fixit and Nef laughed.

"(laugh) I'll be sure to tell her that." Nef said.

She than surprised Fixit by moving closer and kissing the front of his helmet, leaving a lip mark on the glass. He went wide eyed for a minute while Nef looked away shyly with a very cherry red face. Fixit was in a stupor until he heard the door behind him open and got started and yelped a little, getting a laugh from Nef. He regained his composer and weakly laughed as he exited the apartment, he then turned around and his body language must have showed how sad he was because Nef's face became sadden as well. He slowly brought up a hand and waved goodbye.

"Bye" he weakly said

"Bye" she said with a wave of her own hand and a sad smile. The doors closed and now Fixit was outside alone. He than ducked into an ally and was engulfed in the green flash. Leaving XLR8 in his place who quickly speed off and headed toward Mordin's clinic.

* * *

'**Tetrax'- Omega/Mordin's clinic**

XLR8 made it to the entrance, before he walked out into the open, the green flashed engulfed him and replaced him with Frankenstrike. The Transylian approached the clinic and was allowed in by the guards the moment they saw him. He's eventually made his way into the room where he found Mordin. Now Daniel was there assisting the batarian the Samaritan and Shepard helped. The former assistant now heads of the clinic heard the Transylian's heavy footsteps and turned to see the Samaritan approaching.

"Frank!" Daniel said, "Good to see you again." He greeted.

Frankenstrike groaned at the shortening of his name "Do you have to call me that?" he asked.

"It's shorter and easier to call out, I'm use to shortening words around Mordin so I can keep up with him during procedures" Daniel explained. "So, how are you?" he asked.

"Fine, and I see you made it back safe" Frankenstrike said.

"Thanks for the save by the way" Daniel said

"No problem." Frankenstrike.

"Its you again" the batarian spoke up as he looked at the Transylian in recognition. "I can't thank you enough for what you and the human woman did for me."

"No need to thank us. We were just doing what we could to help out" Frankenstrike responded.

"Even so, tell her that you both have my gratitude. And after being treated by the humans in this clinic, I now know that not all humans are what I thought they were." The batarian finished as a nurse helped him into another room. Leaving the two friends a chance to talk some more.

"So, you, Mordin, and the other Samaritans are going on a mission?" Daniel asked, and explained to the Samaritan the conversation he heard between Mordin and Shepard.

"Yeah, I don't know when we'll be back, but we will come back, that I promise." Frankenstrike assured.

"I know you guys will." Daniel responded "I also know this will be the first your time of the Station since arriving, and you'll see the rest of the Milky Way during the mission…Just promise you won't judge the rest of the galaxy based on what you've seen on Omega. Its not all like that. I mean yeah there are dangerous people out there, but there's actual law and order on those other worlds. And we both know you guys can knock people unconscious no problem. (sigh) what I'm saying is…you don't need to kill everyone you fight." He pleaded with the Samaritan.

Even after being threatened by a batarian gang, he still holds on to the notion that killing isn't the answer to everything, even on Omega. Frankenstrike still couldn't believe this…but he could understand…everyone needed some form of hope to hold onto…even him. Frankenstrike sighed.

"I can't promise I won't wind up killing people." Frankenstrike started as he looked at his friend "But I'll try to look for other solutions if I can…" he said as Daniel looked at him hopefully "…but only if they don't force me hand. I'll talk with the others, and they'll probably say the same thing."

"All I ask is that you try" Daniel said with a happier tone. A nurse bought in a salarian patient. "I got to get back to work…take care buddy."

"Same to you pal" Frankenstein said as they both nodded goodbye and Daniel returned to work, and the Samaritan left the room.

* * *

'**Tetrax'- Omega/Afterlife**

XLR8 arrived near afterlife and quickly ducked behind an ally. The green flash engulfed him and replaced him with Berserk. He then approached the front entrance and was allowed in immediately. At this point, the elcor bouncer knew that he was Patriarch's krantt. Once he entered, he walked near the bar on his way to Patriarch and noticed a familiar yellow sleeveless jacket on someone passed on a nearby table.

"Looks like the pyjak stayed out of trouble for once" Berserk muttered to himself as he approached the very drunk Jonn, surrounded by dozens of empty beer bottles. While he was upset that the idiot was so eager to throw himself in a fire fight, the krogan helper was glad to see him alive. He figured he would have to take his drunken friend home after this so he wouldn't get robbed while passed out, that is if he wasn't robbed already. Guess he'll have to leave a message instead of saying goodbye to Jonn. He just hopes that he won't get into anymore trouble while he's gone, maybe he could ask Liselle and Paul to check in on him when they aren't too busy.

He left his friend be for now and the krogan helper made his way to the lower level of the club and came upon the room where Patriarch resided. Telling stories of his former glory on Omega and providing his insights and wisdom to all who came to listen and ask the former Omega boss for advice. At first Berserk wasn't happy about being forced by Aria to watch out for the elder krogan, but eventually he started to enjoy his conversations with he old warlord, guess old age had a way of making a former crime boss pleasant to talk to, despite what he's done in the past. Guess Berserk's not as harsh with all of Omega's criminals. Plus, he wasn't what Berserk expected from a krogan crime boss, he was broken and beaten by Aria and left alive only to be forgotten, Berserk couldn't help but sympathize…after all…he knew what it was like to be…broken. But now that the stories of Patriarch's krantt began to spread, the korgan became more relevant and his tells of glory were reignited along with the warlord's spirit.

"No" Patriarch said as he spoke with a crowd that gathered around him while he paced "You said he had close family. They'll just want revenge. Kill the family first. Then he'll get angry and come at you stupid…and then you kill him." He said as he eventually spotted Berserk approaching him and laughed loudly "My krantt returns!" he bellowed as his krantt stopped in front of him. "I heard the news of you slaughtering the entire Omega Blood Pack, rumor has that you even killed Garm, not that's a feat I never expected!" the elder krogan stated gleefully.

"I'm surprised there are rumors, I didn't leave anyone alive" Berserk noted

"Heh, I have my sources" Patriarch replied "And they say they saw a certain krogan enter the one-man war between Archangel and the mercenaries. Now all the mercenaries are dead and here you are, standing before me! Ha Ha!" he joyfully bellowed again as he slapped Berserk on the arm.

"Now, everyone will fear the name Patriarch and know not to cross you." Berserk said with a smirk.

"Ha! You done more that young one!" Patriarch exclaimed then calmed down "Thanks to you, Aria may think of me as more than a trophy." His smile grew "A real adviser, maybe…Or even a threat. Patriarch…for the first time, I like that name"

Now, that Patriarch was no longer a target, its time to part ways with the krogan, at least for now. He just hopes he won't start and issue with it. "Patriarch" Berserk got the krogan attentions and the elder noticed a change in Berserks demeanor "I am honored to fight in your name as your krantt…But I have to inform you that…"

"You have a journey ahead of you yes?" the elder said and the helper was surprised by this "I already know young one." He finished.

"How?" Berserk couldn't help but ask.

"I may not hold the power I originally possessed before, but I still have enough influence to hear things" Patriarch explained "I know you are an associate of the Samaritans, (Berserk eyes widened) and I also know that Aria is blackmailing you and your associates, but has given you permission to leave Omega with the thought-to-be-dead Commander Shepard."

"I don't need Aria's permission to do anyth-"Berserk stated angry but was interrupted.

"Sadly, you do I'm afraid" Patriarch said knowingly "Aria had you under her finger tips the moment she discovered your secret, what it is I don't know. She's kept this information more secure than any other secret she's kept." He looks at Berserk with a rare display of sympathy "But I won't press you for any further, that's your business and it's the least I can do after you restored my honor. Like it or not however, you belong to Aria, just as I do. You, the Samaritans, and the other helpers…are her secret trophies…her secret weapons" He finished sadly.

Berserk was mad, he hated to acknowledge Patriarch's words. He wanted to refuse. To deny the truth in his words…but he couldn't. Like he said. Like it or not…Aria owns him.

"So, what do you suggest I do?" Berserk asked while trying to hold in his rage, hoping the elder krogan had any advice for this situation.

"For now, play along." Patriarch advised "Use this time away from Omega to find a solution to this, otherwise you'll either have to decide if this secret is worth being ordered by Aria." With that Patriarch placed a hand on Berserks shoulder "I wish you luck on your journey, after wards you'll have to come back and when you do, you'll have to make a decision about whether or not this secret is worth it." Berserk looked in the old warrior's eye's and nodded in appreciation of his words "Fight well my krantt…and bring back a story or two to tell." He said with a smile. Berserk smiled.

"I will Patriarch." Berserk assured, before he could leave Patriarch came closer and whispered to into his ear, as if he was concerned that someone was listening.

"Be careful with Aria" the elder warned "She will approve of what you've done, I think, but not of you altering the balance of Omega…I think it reminds her too much of herself." He warden.

Berserk nodded in appreciation and began to make his way back up to the main bar. Has approached the bar, he glanced up at the second floor and noticed Aria was talking to some. Someone with red hair.

* * *

**Shepard-Omega/Afterlife-Second Floor**

Shepard got a second audience with the Pirate Queen of Omega. She needed to know something, while she had a feeling, she already knew the answer she needed to confirm it from the source.

"Thanks for that info about the mercs by the way" Aria said "You and the Samaritans decimated their leadership but there are a few stragglers still out there, and now they'll be easier to keep them line. Maybe give me some room to make new arrangements with the main branches" She said. "And I heard what you did with the plague, keeps me from having to deal wit it later. Also, I heard you gave Berserk a little help with keeping hitmen off Patriarch, the krogan still has his uses, as does his kratt, so thanks for pitching. I didn't even have to ask or bribe" Aria's lightly chuckled.

"So, you knew?" Shepard asked, deciding to just ask and get it over with.

"Know what?" Aria said with a faux innocent tone.

"About the Samaritan" Shepard asked more sternly trying not to sound irritated and start a fight.

"Which one" Aria said while acting ignorant "There's a few to choose from" Than she made a fake realization expression "Oh! You must mean if I knew that _those_ Samaritan_s_ were just _the_ Samaritan." She said with a wicked smile. "I didn't know at first, but everyone slips up, even our friendly neighborhood shapeshifter." She explains to Shepard who's face had a mix of irritation and curiosity "I had someone contact him in one his helper forms and had him followed from a distance, guess he was off his game not to notice. (light chuckle) To say I was surprised at first was an understatement, but then I thought of the uses of having a shapeshifter with such powerful forms. So, we made a deal." She looked Shepard in the eyes. "I keep his little secret safe with me, and he stays away from my operations." Her smile grew while Shepard was tempted to knock that smile off her face. "Everything was pretty much the same as before afterwards, he still killed all my enemies, who unfortunately made the mistake of creating collateral damage, and I occasionally provide him info on them." She explained.

"And you didn't tell me straight up before because…?" Shepard asked.

"Would you have believed it if I told you?" Aria asked "You've claimed to have seen some wild things Shepard, but you have to admit, he's something you had to see to believe" Aria said. Shepard wanted to argue, but she couldn't because she probably wouldn't have believed it, finding out aliens like that existed was unbelievable, finding out about the Omnitirx was an entirely different story.

"_Speaking of, does she know about the Omnitrix too?"_ Shepard mentally asked herself.

"Actually" Aria started "He's one of the reasons I started to believe more of those wild things you claimed to have seen. So, it would be in my best interest to make sure the galaxy doesn't come close to being exterminated again." Aria smiled "And what better way to help then to loan my little shapeshifter to you and keep the monsters at bay"

"Loan?" Shepard couldn't help but say out loud. Shepard didn't like the sound of that. Aria's smile got wicked again.

"I mean, I'm known to share my toys every now and then…" Aria then placed her hand her head and made fake sad gesture and spoke in a fake sorrow "But I couldn't bear the thought of departing with my favorite pet permanently" Shepard was straight to get more and more pissed off as Aria continued "Beside he keeps the lower riff raff in line, since I have no time to deal with them when I have to deal with mercs and other big gangs regularly to maintain control." She looks at Shepard in the eye "So I expect you to return my darling shapeshifter back in one peace so he can maintain that order…because if word got out that the Samaritans of Omega were just one Samaritan…well let's just say the mercs weren't his only major enemies. The rest are hiding in the shadows waiting for weakness and they would take the opportunity to come back out, once they found out he can't be everywhere at once."

"_OKAY, THAT'S IT!"_ Shepard was ready to mouth off and cause a shootout but they were interrupted by the sound of heavy footsteps climbing up the stairs, both women turned to see Berserk standing on the edge of the stares and giving the guards near him a death glare and they quickly backed off and Aria made no objection to him approaching closer. Aria directed her smirk to the helper. While Shepard looked at him worriedly, hoping this doesn't turn uglier than it already is.

"Berserk" Aria greeted with an amused tone "We were just talking about you." Berserk just gave her the death glare.

"(angry grunt) I'll bet you were" He said, then he turned his attention to the ex-spectre "Shepard" he greeted politely.

"Hey big guy" She said with a small smile and had a look of sympathy on her face. She could only imagine how frustrated he was wit this situation, it almost like how her situation with Cerberus, TIM says she has a choice, but he says it in a way that makes it seem like she never really had a choice to begin with.

"Me and the commander were just making things clear" Aria said has her devious smile never left her face. "She understands your _commitments _on Omega, and she was assuring me that she would have you back as soon as possible. Isn't that right Commander?" Aria directed the question toward Shepard.

She wanted to tell the bitch to fuck off and put a bullet in her head so the secret can just die with her. But then she looked at Berserk who gave her the look that she gave him at the merc base every time he came close to losing his cool. The subtle look that said, "Stand down". Shepard sighed and nodded "Crystal" She said angrily but calmly through her teeth.

"Good" Aria said, satisfied with the answer than turned her attention back to the helper "Don't be gone too long, the streets would fall apart without their favorite Samaritans watching them. Understand **kiddo**?"

Shepard could see Berserk tightening his fists, something told Shepard that there was more than one secret at stake for the shapeshifter.

"I got it" Berserk growled.

"Good boy" Arai said in sickeningly sweet tone. Then she waved her hand in a 'shoo' motion "Now run along and play you too, but not for too long" She said.

Shepard signed in anger and stood up and followed Berserk downstairs. She saw him head for a table near the bar and noticed him picking someone up and throwing them over his shoulders, the kid form earlier, Jonn. Looks like he listened and stayed away from the fight. Berserk rejoined her as they walked outside the bar.

"Tetrax about…" Shepard started to say

"Not here" he warned as he looked around, and Shepard did the same. Yeah, she decided that this probably wasn't the best place for that talk. They walked to an ally, and out of sight from the streets. She was then blinded by a green flash and as it died down, the velociraptor alien was before her with the drunk kid over his shoulder.

"Be back in a flash" he said before zooming off.

"Wait!" she said with a hand reached out but then two seconds later, found herself being scooped up by Tetrax as he held her bridal style and gasped in surprise as she looked at his visor covered face "Hey what are you-"

"Hang on" He said, "Pedal to the medal" and they began to speed of

"GAHH!" was all Shepard managed to say as they sped off.

* * *

Author: Okay, Next Chapter will have one part on the Normandy. The other part will be the Citadel with Ben doing some hero work.

Mass effect Aliens so far:

Berserk

Fenix- Turian biotic (Thank you for the name suggestion Wanderer3, the name really fits)

Fixit (The name just fits to me)

Cleo- Asari biotic (I looked up Asari and it said that its another word for Osiris, Egyptian god, so I called her Cleo (Cleopatra). I thought it was more subtle than naming her after a goddess)

Batarian biotic form

Salarian form

Also, no this is not the official romance for Ben, this is just something to start with. Now, am I cruel for making them that close even though I know what will happen soon...maybe. But you'll have to wait and see what happens.

Ben won't keep up the lies for very long. Somewhere in the next six chapeters, he'll be discovered by the Normandy crew. Trust me, it won't be even close to halfway through the story by the time they find out.

Also Liselle and Paul are characters from the Mass effect book: Retribution.

I'm going to be honest, I wasn't thinking of romance when I started this story, and a I probably shouldn't have started this story with so much secrecy. Now I'm kind of afraid to reveal what I've been holding back from you guys.

Also this story is part of a bigger project of mine. This Ben is one of five alternate Ben's I've planned. I've picked a random point in the Ben 10 timeline and created five alternate scenarios where a villain with the ability to conquer the world arrives and turns earth into a war zone. NO, its not the kind where all his family and friends are just killed off, but that doesn't mean than one of the Ben's didn't lose one or two people in their reality. Eventually all the Ben's will meet up for a crossover specials and each will vary in age when they reach that point. One is a teen, one is in his twenties, one will be mid-thirties, one late-forties, the other one will be 60 (why? Becasue on Youtube I saw a fanmade Ben 10 trailer with a _Logan _theme and it just gave me the idea of Old Man Ben with Steve Blum's Wolverine voice). So if your disappointed with what happens with the Ben romance in this one, there will be four others to choose from. Fair warning I suck with romance (in writing and real life) so don't have too much high expectations, but I'll try my best.

TILL NEXT TIME GUYS!


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